Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your week was blessed with the grace of God allowing you to stand. I had a good week and 5 people (Simona, Joseph, Darion, Michael, Jimmy) prayed with me to receive Christ. One, a girl Ben, had prayed after I spoke with her in September and I met her again and found that out.

Jimmy prayed with me to receive Jesus. His story is below if ya feel like a read. Please pray these are all blessed in their faith.

Jimmy was sitting around the corner of a lounge on the 1^st floor of the BIC. It has vending machines and a hall out the back with skylights above it. He was wearing a black pull over hoodie with an anime character on it wore blue jeans and florescent green mesh tennis shoes. He had a short mop of wavy brown hair and a day’s growth of beard. He had somewhat soft-edged features, kind of the ‘every man’ look. He was a nice friendly guy and it turned out he had been through Catholic school. He said he wanted to own a house, kind of a by-gone era goal with housing prices falling in many places, though it has not set in around our area as much. I asked him what he would say to God if asked, “Why should I let you into Heaven?” “Because I’ve strived to help people,” he replied. He seemed like a nice guy. He hadn’t seemed to have understood the meaning behind Jesus’ death. I explained the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin and that He was a payment for sin and earned the righteousness by God. I said the Bible taught by grace faith saved him and I asked if he would want to be forgiven for his sins or thought something else. I showed him the two circles one with Christ inside on the throne the other with Christ outside. ”To be honest that (pointing at Christ on the outside) seems more like where I am at. The other seems too cheap.” He said he felt like people would abuse that and say they were forgiven and do nothing, in terms of righteous acts or good deeds because they would think they did not have to earn it. I said I agreed that some people might not do good, thinking they could skate, but people like that would then be lying that they truly believed that Jesus had suffered and died to make the Christian life or that they even believed in a God, their actions would betray that belief. I asked him if he had a favorite football team. He said he liked the Tennessee Titans, “But they’re not very good right now.” I gave an example where I more or less said I had a friend who played briefly for the Titans who used to live next door. So, say he called me when the Titans were in town and said he had a couple of tickets and would I like to go, he had a skybox and could not fill it. I said yeah I knew a guy who liked them and he said he’d leave them at the gate. So I stayed in touch with you somehow and gave you a call and we went. We got to the gate and said we had free tickets. She asked who’d left them for us and we gave my friends name and then asked ours and she said, “Yep I got your tickets,” and she handed them over. You said to her, “I want to show that I appreciate these can I give you some money for them?” “I can’t take money for free tickets or I could get fired,” she replied. “But here’s what you can to. When you get to the skybox don’t cheer for the Bears, it’s all Titan’s fans there. Be cool to everyone and don’t spill any drinks on the crowd beneath you and stuff.” I said then that you can’t pay for your free ticket to go to Heaven but you can please God with your life and do the good things He would want you to do. “I can honor God,” he replied. “Right,” I replied. The other problem with doing good things to earn Heaven is every time you told someone you were going to Heaven, if they asked why, you’d basically say, Because I’m good, or better than you. And that would be pride, which is a sin. So every time you told people why you were going to Heaven you’d be sinning. He smiled at that and agreed it seemed to be a problem.  I went on to tell him then about the power of the Holy Spirit. I turned to the back and read the quote, “Your walk with Christ depends on what you allow Him to do in and through you empowered by the Holy Spirit, not what you do for Him through self-effort.” So, it’s really by the Holy Spirit’s power that we can live a life that pleases God. I explained the fruit of the Spirit then too. That all made sense to him so asked then if he’d want to be forgiven trusting in Jesus. He said that he did so I said there was a prayer he could pray and I read it through asking if it was the desire of his heart. “Un ha,” he replied and I said if he wanted he could pray it silently and he said, “Sure.” He prayed then to receive Jesus. I talked him through what I had not said about the Christian life, Bible reading and prayer and confessing your sins. I gave him Bible Promises for You and I wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. “Is this a prayer book?” he asked. I said, “You can use it like that.” I talked to him about being a kid and there was a midweek snow fall and asking my dad to take us sledding. He promised to go to the toboggan run on the weekend. When the weekend came we said, “You promised to take us sledding,” And he said, “Your right. I promised, so I will.” So, when you pray if you use Bible verses God has promised you know these are things He has said so you can pray them. He seemed to like that idea. I also gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and a Bible study and explained it a bit. He asked about Bible study so I told him when ours was and told him I would keep him in my prayers praying a Bible verse for him each day until Spring and one year after. He was grateful and we went our separate ways.

Thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism if you had a chance. God truly blessed.

In Him,

Bob