Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed and God gave you grace in everything. Daniel prayed to receive Christ today and I touched base with many of the students who have trusted in Jesus this year one by one as I walked around.  I encouraged a couple Christians helping one to gain more assurance of salvation, Jesus [hey seus] thanked me and was grateful to go through the gospel again. Daniel’s story is below if you have some time. Please pray he grows in his faith.

 Daniel was sitting along the wall on the south side of the science building eating some lunch looking out to the North through the windowed walls. He was wearing black sweats and a grey shirt. He had rectangle frames on his glasses and had short hair maybe a half inch. His mustache was thin and combed lengthwise, one end turned up a bit. He had an oval face. He was friendly and went to a Polish language church that was Roman Catholic. He was a friendly guy but struggled to find words to describe himself. He seemed to plan to write/design some computer games. I asked him what he would say to God if he died and God asked, “Why should I let you into Heaven?” “I’ve tried to live a life that’s good, tried to leave the place better or at least more advanced than when I came to it.” I asked him what the likelihood was he would get into Heaven and he said, “40% maybe 50/50.  Saying God wanted to know him (live inside him) I asked what Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world so God could live in him. “He was a sacrifice for sin,” he replied. He listened to the Gospel as I explained it and seemed to agree. He put in during the Gospel that you go to purgatory when you die before you go to Heaven. I said there were Catholics that taught that and some who didn’t. (I’ve gone to several funerals for Roman Catholics where the priest said the dead individual was in Heaven.) “Well that’s what I was told,” he said off handedly. So I said, “You could believe that if you wanted to, the Bible says this,” and I went on to explain the Gospel and the righteousness of God from the scriptures. [As an aside, I didn’t go into the details of purgatory, which I’ve read in the Catholic Encyclopedia. It’s described just like Hell; you burn there and the average person will be cleansed or purged there for 1000 years. Purgatory is pretty discouraging to look forward to. But if you believed on Jesus as the only way you could be forgiven but still believed God was going to cleanse you in Purgatory you would still be saved, and pleasantly surprised when you died.] I explained that the righteousness Jesus earned was to his credit and God adopted him and gave him the blessings of His family. “He gives you the sacrifice for your sins the blood that cleanses you and the righteousness of God that surrounds you. So you got some place to go, Heaven, and something to wear when you get there, the righteousness of God,” I explained. I said that we needed to receive Jesus, believing that He was God, had died for our sins and rose from the dead. “Not that you just know the story but that that that’s what you put your trust in so that if someone were to ask you why God should let you into Heaven you’d say, “Because Jesus died for me.” In the end I asked him, “When you prayed for forgiveness for your sins are you thinking I hope I’m be good enough to get in, or are you thinking I know I’ll be forgiven because Jesus died for me. Or you don’t know.” “I don’t really think when I’m praying I just try to get the words of the prayer right,” He replied. “Now after hearing this though I would hope for forgiveness.” I said if he wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray and I talked him through it. I asked if it was the desire of his heart. “I think it is,” he replied. I said if he wanted he could pray it silently and know he was forgiven and asked if he wanted to do that. “Probably,” he said taking the booklet. I wasn’t sure he was going to pray it or would just ask to keep it but he read it through again and then prayed it and crossed himself as he finished. I offered him Bible Promises for You he said he had a similar small book in polish with prayers for different occasions. He makes a rectangle with his fingers and it seemed the book was like a Gideon’s New Testament in size.  I said he could have this one in English and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. “So this prayer is the first prayer you’ve prayed in English?” I asked. “Probably,” he replied. “I only pray in Polish.” He said he’d look for Strobel’s stuff on line. I gave him a Bible Study on the Deity of Christ. I said that now trusting in the blood of Jesus and His righteousness the likelihood he would get into Heaven was 100%. I told him I would pray a Bible verse for him each day and if I saw him around I’d give him a wave. He said, “OK,” and I headed off.

 So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and to guide me doing evangelism today if you had a chance. God blessed the work and I walked in what He prepared beforehand.

In Him,

Bob