Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was filled with all things bright and beautiful, wise and wonderful. Seems a tall order these days but it is sunny and warm for February on our piece of the planet. I had a good day on campus and encouraged some Christians. Griffin prayed to receive Jesus.  His story is below. Please pray he grows in faith in Jesus.

Griffin had light brown hair parted on the left and swept over. He had some sideburns he was working on that were still not quite surfacing and looked his 18 years. He had a boyish face and was friendly, blue eyes. He was 5’6” wearing grey sweats and a green t-shirt sitting in the middle of the SSC lounge. It turned out he had a Swedish Bible that had English on one side. He asked if I was a protestant. I said I was if he meant the term as a non-Catholic, which he defined as—at least a few times a year plus holidays.  He asked for the main question when I asked him if he’d want to do a survey. I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven and after thinking a bit he said, “Could I have done better?” He thought he had an 85% chance of going to Heaven saying he had some things he could work on. We went back and forth on the survey. I silently prayed at one point we could get back to it. His courses of conversation off topic weren’t boring, I just wondered if I could get to the gospel before he left for class. He was into Hungarian swordsmanship with a curved sword, something like a scimitar. He had 11 pupils who he was teaching this to and so had all the protective gear for himself and a student. He also told me about his brother a Marine Osprey pilot, or at least he was part of the 6-man crew. He had some things to tell me about his shotgun, showing me pictures. On two occasions he paused and said, is there anything else you were going to say and I’d get a bit more of the Gospel in each time. He knew Jesus had died to take away the sins of the world but as seen in his answers he wasn’t actually trusting in Christ’s work directly but more thought of it as a source of grace he could earn. I finally came around to asking if, when he asked God for forgiveness, he was thinking he’d know he was forgiven because Jesus had died for him or was it more that he hoped he’d be forgiven and he’d try harder to earn it. I said if he had never asked God to forgive him trusting in Jesus there was a prayer he could pray. I talked him through it. “Oh I pray,” he started to reply. “Yes, that’s great but that’s not really what I am asking and really you are justifying yourself again when you say it.” I pointed out he was really listing praying as another religious work. I talked to him about the Holy Spirit and living inside > out. He talked then about something he did by saying the quote he left in his HS year book. It was something like, “God provides the test and I conquer it.” I pointed out that for him not to be doing this in the flesh he should be asking for God’s power by His Holy Spirit get through a test. This had not occurred to him. He quoted the colloquialism that, “God will not give you a trial bigger than you can handle.” asking if I had heard that. I said that it was not directly in the Bible but derived from the passage (I paraphrased or quoted in part) that God would not allow a temptation beyond which you are able but will provide a way of escape. I said escape might be victory over temptation or to avoid it. He asked what I though the most common defensive move in swordsmanship is and I guessed, “to back up” and he said I was right. I went back to the prayer and helped him to see he was not trusting in what Jesus had done to save him but in what he was doing. “You’re changing my perspective,” he replied. I asked then if he would want to be forgiven praying for God to forgive him not based on what he had done but what Jesus had done. He said he would. I said then that he could pray that prayer silently and know he was forgiven. I said I could not even witness it because he would be doing it silently but it would be between him and God.  He decided to do so and prayed to receive Jesus. I told him the likelihood now he would get into Heaven, trusting I the blood and righteousness of Jesus was 100%. He had a Bible as I mentioned and I had already talked through the Christian life. I gave him Bible Promises for You writing his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front, The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and a Bible Study. He had to run to class then and I thanked him for the most interesting conversation I had had this year and he trucked on off.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a moment. God truly blessed and moved a heart to Himself.

In Him,

Bob