Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope you had a great day marching with the righteous and standing on the promises of God. Nikola prayed to receive Jesus today and I prayed over a couple different students who shared some life struggles with me so that was a blessing too. Please pray Nikola grows in faith. His story is below if you want to spend the time.

Nikola was sitting on one of a group of benches against the wall by the exit to the patio, it’s the top of the waterfall turned off still from the winter. He had a mop of semi curly brown hair and a mustache only over his lip, a bit gapped in the middle beard under his chin, good-looking guy. He wore a black Bulls T-shirt with some colorful images on it and black shorts. He was a solid guy, 5×5. He said he went to a Macedonia Orthodox Church and thought he’d like to go back to Macedonia where he had some family and his parents were from. He looked Macedonian to me. I asked him if he was hit by a bus and died what he would say to God to get into Heaven. “That’s a good question,” he replied. I replied that a lot of people I ask that to hadn’t thought about it before. He thought for a minute and then asked me to read him the question again, I did and he then said, “Sorry give me a moment.” I said, “Sure.” He finally came up with, “I’d say, ‘Maybe I didn’t live a good life here, but I’d hope to make it better over there.” I asked him what the likelihood was he was going to Heaven and he thought it was up to God but he’d guess 80%. I began to go through the Gospel with him and after a little rephrasing (in the way I asked the question) he knew Jesus had sacrificed Himself to take away our sins. He then he agreed with the blood of Jesus cleansing us from all sin and I explained the payment of Christ’s blood. The Bible says, “Life is in the blood” [Lev. 17:11] Jesus is the source of all life and when we sin we take life. “If I rollover your foot (with my truck) I took some of your life, if I steal money from you spent your time and life to get that money so now I am stealing life from you,” I explained. So we owe God life. Jesus’ blood is life and so when He pours it out it pays God back for the life we owe Him. “So the real reason God forgives you is He got paid, but He had to pay Himself with the blood of Jesus.” I went on to explained the righteousness of God earned by Christ and given to us because we had no righteousness in our selves because we could not do anything perfect. God adopted us and gave this to us. He needed to receive Christ then to believe Jesus was God died for his sins and rose from the dead. Grace by faith saved him. I asked if he would want to be forgiven trusting in what Jesus had done. “Definitely,” he replied. I said then there was a prayer he could pray and read it through for him asking if it expressed the desire of his heart. “Yeah absolutely,” he replied. I said he could pray it silently and asked if he’d want to. “Yeah,” he replied. I handed him the booklet and he prayed to receive Jesus. “I guess you want this,” he said about the booklet but I said he could keep it. I explained the Christian life to him—praying, confessing, he had several Bibles. I explained him the Christian life was by the Spirit’s power inside out, asking God to transform him on the inside so he could do good things on the outside. I gave him Bible Promises for You and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” on the inside and he was grateful saying “Thank you” as I handed it to him. I gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and he thought he might have heard of Strobel. I also gave him a Bible Study showing passages where Jesus claimed to be God. “Thank you. I appreciate it,” he said. I told him I would pray a Bible verse for him each day from now until Spring and one year after asking God to bless him. “Nice to talk with you,” he said shaking my hand. “Yeah God bless you,” I replied. “See you around hopefully,” he said. “Yeah, see you around,” I replied. And I headed out the doors.

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

In Him,

Bob