Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your week was blessed with all good things from above. 8 people trusted Christ this week (Ellis, Savannah, Lena, Joseph, Kaycee, Alexa, Malcolm) and the last Daniel on Thursday. Please pray they grow I their faith. Daniel’s story is below if you have time. It turned into a bit of a discussion on how evil you can be and still be forgiven. Thanks for your help in prayer.

Daniel was sitting in the cafeteria alone at a table polishing off some pasta in a Tupperware®. He had a blue Coors beer hat on and a tan hoodie, brown hair. His mustache was like two pencil size caterpillars that went to the ends of his mouth and did not join in the middle. He had a good looking every-man kind of face and a square chin with a beard on the underside of it, friendly guy. He’d gone to church as a kid but it had been a while. When I asked him what he would say to God, if he died, to get into Heaven he said, “Umm, I don’t know.” So I asked if he could remember anything they’d said at church about it what might get him into Heaven, “Nah,” It was too long ago he thought, “Good deeds?” I asked him what the likelihood he would get into Heaven, “10%‘s low or 100% you’re sure, 50/50 you got a shot?” “I think I got a shot,” he replied. I said God wanted to live inside him and give him eternal life and asked if he knew what Jesus had done to take away his sins. He didn’t have any recollection of that so I went on to explain the Gospel to him. As I was explaining the blood of Christ cleansing him and it as a payment to God he asked something like, What about people who are doing evil things but say they are Christians? I told him that a genuine Christian would make mistakes but if the Holy Spirit is inside you and He doesn’t just hang out there, He actually transforms you. So though I did not know him well enough to be able to say if he had changed someone that knew him better might see the gradual change God was making in him. If someone continued to do really wicked things I’d have to assume they did not really have genuine faith and believe that Christ had died for them as they did not show any sign of transformation. I said that people who appeared to be basically good would begin to do things by the Spirit’s power inside them. I went on to explain the righteousness of God that Jesus earned by perfectly fulfilling the Law. I said the complete work of Christ was all these things and that by ourselves we did not have anything perfect to offer to God. I told Him God wanted to adopt him, make him His child so He could give him all these things. He needed to receive Christ by faith and his good stuff could not fix his bad stuff. I asked if he wanted to be forgiven for his sins or thought something else giving him the quick take options of Islam where their god did not live inside you, was not a father, as he didn’t have a son and there was no sacrifice for sin, “So they have a different god.” And the Buddha left his wife and kid to seek enlightenment but he was not looking for God at all, he did not care if there was a God or not. He thought if he got his head straight he could escape the dream world. “So would you want to be forgiven for your sins and have God live inside you?” I asked again. He stared at the booklet for a slow count to at least 10 and then said, “Yeah,” and looked up from the booklet. So I said if he wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray. I walked him through it and said, “It says here, ‘Does this prayer express the desire of your heart?’ Would you say it does?” “Yeah,” he said. So I said he could pray it right now, “I wouldn’t hear you but God would hear and you’d know you were forgiven. Wanna do that?” “Yeah,” he said again and he took the booklet and prayed to receive Christ. He did it so quickly I wasn’t sure he had and he asked, “What about someone like Hitler?” I checked and he had prayed and I said, “People have asked me that. I’m pretty sure people like Hitler or some of these criminals are psychotic. I don’t know if they would have [the freedom of] choice anymore to ask God to be forgiven. The Blood of Christ is an infinitely valuable payment for sin so philosophically speaking they could be forgiven. But the Bible says God gives some people over to evil. He asks them and asks them and they push Him away so He finally says, ‘Alright’. Then they just get worse and that is all they are. Some people you can’t take away their demons or there would be nothing left of them.” He saw that was true and agreed.  I explained the Christian life to him asking if he had a Bible. He didn’t so I gave him one and explained the study helps in it and a Q -> Bible verse sheet I got from another Bible. I wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front and he thanked me. I explained living “By the Spirit’s power” asking for God to transform him “Inside Out”. I also gave him Bible Promises for You and a Bible study explaining it a bit, that Isaiah 9:6 is revealing Messiah would be God and the Trinity was expressed. I briefly expressed how he was a plural being (body mind and spirit) and God was a plural being also. I talked him through the miracle of walking on the water as a claim to be God. I gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and recommended Strobel on line for questions. He reached out and shook my hand and thanked me. I told him I would keep him in my prayers each day from now until Spring and one year after. I said something like, “I’ll see ya around.” “I’ll give ya a wave,” he said with a smile and I had to run to a treatment appointment for sciatica.

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

In Him,

Bob