Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed with the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. I had a good day on campus. We had a Bible Study and rushing out the door to get there I forgot to send the email I wrote asking for prayer. But Kathrine prayed to receive Jesus today. Her story is below if you have the time. I also had an amicable conversation with Adam a Muslim and gave him the book, Dear Muslim Friend Jerry Mattix wrote, a Christian worker in the Holy Land. Adam was interested in other religions so it seemed like he might read it. His father was Indian and mother was Pakistani, he was born here. Thanks for your prayers to bless these.

Kathrine was sitting in the hallway of the Science building. She had a white t-shirt on with black lettering all over it and wore some “Nightmare Before Christmas” print pants. She had an oval, near round face, and wore no make-up her dark brown hair pulled black tight on her head. Really warm smile, cute kid. I asked her what she would say to God to get into Heaven She began explaining, “I feel like I could list reasons why I shouldn’t be let in. But I’m not really clear on why I would be in Heaven. In my family we believe in God, but don’t practice religion or anything. I do want to get closer to God but I wasn’t taught how to have a relationship with Him. It’s kind of hard to say.” I asked her the likelihood she would get into Heaven when she died. “30% maybe, just because I don’t know a lot about the Bible what we need to do to get let into Heaven. My grandmother is religious, she talks to be about it but hasn’t been able to tell me the full details of how.” “Yeah it’s kind of like riding a bicycle, it’s not hard unless no one teaches you and then you feel like, I could fall and get killed on that.” She laughed and agreed. I said the rest of the survey was about what she thought about Christianity. I said I could explain to her how she got to Heaven if she was interested and she said she was. I began to explain the Gospel to her then, that God loved her and wanted to know and live inside her but first had to take away her sin to make her His type, then she’d be perfect and holy inside and she’d match God and I asked if she had ever heard what Jesus did to take away her sin. “He sent Jesus,” she replied. “Right. He sent Jesus and this is what Jesus did,” I said and began to explain that Jesus had died to cleanse us from sin [1John 1:7]. We are supposed to be perfect [Mt 5:48]. If we stood before God He could say, “Did you live a perfect life?” and when you said you didn’t He could say, “Everything is perfect here, you don’t really fit in.” But then everyone would go to Hell because no one is perfect.  So God becomes a man Jesus and lives a perfect life for us. He’s then as a payment to God for all the imperfect things we’ve done that we owe God something perfect for. I explained the righteousness of God and it was to her credit like extra credit in a class. I explained she could receive Him by faith, which mean she believed in Him, that Jesus was God had died for her sins and rose from the dead. Then that it was by grace she was saved by faith, not by works—her good stuff did not fix her bad stuff. And that God could work all things into good for them that loved God and are called according to his purposes. I asked her if she would want to be forgiven for her sins trusting in what Jesus had done, then God would live inside her and give her all the strength she needed to live the Christian life. “So would you want to be forgiven or do you think something else?” I asked. “I would want to be forgiven for my sins,” she replied. I said if she wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer she could pray and I talked her though it, asking if it expressed the desire of her heart and if it did she could pray it silently and asked if she’d want to. “Um hum,” she said with a smile. Then asking if she should pray it aloud I said no just silently God will hear. And then she prayed to receive Jesus. When she finished I said, “Your sins are forgiven, not because I say so but because the Bible says so.” And she smiled. I began to go through the Christian life with her then. I asked if she had a Bible and she didn’t so I gave her a study Bible. I showed her the maps, explained a cross reference. I showed her some of the study helps and devotionals and the 99 doctrines page. I wrote her name in the front and the date and “forgiven!” I explained that we should obey God but when we fail, God is not angry with us, all His anger was poured out on the cross (for believers). “When you confess God’s not like a bad boyfriend who’s [withholding his forgiveness] like, we’ll see how you do. God knew the future and knew we’d mess up and He has a plan to fix it.” I explained living Inside > Out asking for the Spirit’s power to give her help in everything.  I gave her a copy of Bible Promises for You. Then I gave her The Case for Christ Answer Booklet. And explained Strobel’s story saying he had some YouTubes to watch that she could find. I gave her a Bible Study on the ways Jesus claims to be God. I told her if she had any questions my email was on the back of the booklet. “Ok well I’ll see you in Heaven,” I said getting up to go. “Thank you,” she said. Then a few steps away I said, “I forgot to say I’ll pray for you each day until Spring and one year after asking God to bless you.” “Thank you so much,” she replied sincerely. And I headed off.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance, God truly blessed.

In Him,

Bob