Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed walking with the Lord. I had a good day on campus and Ben, Marquese and Shawn each prayed with me to receive Christ. Pat gained assurance of faith and I answered some Christian life questions for George after he heard me talking with another student. Please pray these guys grow in their faith. Their stories are below if you have time.

Ben had a tight pad of blonde curls the sides were short, he wore a grey t-shirt, black shorts and had a good-looking athletic face. Muscular. He was sitting in some new booths that they have placed into the wall along the edge of the SSC lounge they just remodeled. He wanted to become a fireman like his father who had been a Priest in the Catholic Church. He went to Catholic schools as a kid. Though he’d grown up in the Catholic Church he had been looking into faith and said he was kind of finding his way through it. It turned out his girlfriend Jordan was a Christian who was really into her faith and she’d been kind of steering his quest. They’d dated for 3 years. I walked up and he was not sure he wanted to do a survey so I asked if he would want to just answer the big question. He agreed to consider it and I said, “You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus. So you’re dead. And you stand before God and he says, “Why should I let you into Heaven?’ What would you say?” “I believe everyone goes to Heaven,” he replied. I asked if he would want to hear some Bible verses on how you get into Heaven and he agreed. I began and asked him what Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world. He could not think of anything in that moment. I went through the Gospel with him saying everything I usually said about the blood of Christ and His righteousness and he asked some questions for clarification. I added as I sometimes do that Heaven was not just a place it was the presence of God and you had to be perfect to enter it. Jesus was perfect and cleansed us so we could be in God’s presence and He could live inside us. I said that he would not go to Heaven because he was good but because Jesus was good and he was connected to Him. I explained that God adopted him and made him His child and gave him the sacrifice for his sins the blood that cleansed him and the righteousness of God that surrounds him and then filled him with His Spirit. I said he needed to receive this by faith. I asked finally if he would want to be forgiven for his sins or thought something else. “Trust in God,” he said. So I said if he wanted to be forgiven trusting in what Jesus had done for him there was a prayer he could pray and talked him through it asking if it was the desire of his heart. “Yeah,” he replied. I said he could pray it silently and I wouldn’t hear him but God would hear him and he’d know he was forgiven. “Wanna do it?” I asked. “Yeah,” he replied again and he prayed to receive Jesus. I explained then that everyone would not go to Heaven or Heaven would be just like earth. “No,” he agreed realizing they wouldn’t. In order for everyone to get along there they would have to be transformed and for many people they would no longer be themselves at all if God made them fit for Heaven I said and he agreed. We talked about marriage and women and men and the differences. I could tell he really admired his girlfriend. He asked what the differences were in Roman Catholicism and Christianity as I’d explained it. I said at a base level regardless of what the Church says for many people they only believe the basic thing, that Jesus is God died for their sins and rose from the dead. They have faith in that and don’t understand what the Church is saying about the rest of it anyway. I explained sacramentalism to him and said that if it were true that certain sacraments helped you to be drawn near to God they could still only do so by the power of the Holy Spirit. I said I did not think that it was impossible for God to decide to work in you honoring these things but it was still God at work not the things. I talked about the Mass and said at one point if people kneeled during it because they thought the elements of the Eucharist had become God that would mean they were wrong. He agreed and replied that he had always done that as a kid to be respectful and had never thought of it that way. It seemed he had left the Catholic Church so I did not go on. I gave him Bible Promises for You and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. I gave him a Bible study and The Case for Christ Answer Booklet. I told him I would keep him in my prayers each day praying a Bible verse for him until Spring and one year after. He thanked me and was grateful and I headed out.

I leaned against the wall around the corner and sat on the floor to make some notes on the conversation with Ben. I never got to it as a 6’2” thin black guy got a drink for the fountain about 8 feet in front of me and asked me how I was doing. He looked like a wide receiver. Maybe I looked like I needed help. He had a mop of braids about 5 inches long, the sides were shaved. He was clean-shaven with sharp features, good-looking guy, wearing a black hoodie and black narrow leg sweats. I said something like, “Well, I’m old so you know.” He asked what I meant and I talked about a few of my mishaps on the road on motorcycles and in cars and said I’d hurt my neck and today had a headache from it, the basic stuff. He asked what I did here and I said I walk around and talk to people about Jesus. He was supportive and so I asked him what he’d say to God to get into Heaven question. He said “I wouldn’t.” “You wouldn’t stand before God?” I asked. “No I wouldn’t be let into Heaven,” he as much as said that he had not done enough. I said that wouldn’t get him into Heaven anyway. He said he knew that you had to believe in Jesus but he did not think that was enough. (It turned out he did not understand a saving faith as believing in Jesus.) I told him “Christianity is like a blood transfusion, I have A+ blood if you fill me full of B- blood I would clot up and die.” I told him God wanted to transfuse His life into Him, live inside him with His Holy Spirit but first that to make him His type. I said lemmie show you this. I got out a booklet so he’d have something to take with him. Like a blood transfusion God had to take away his sins I explained. I asked him what the big thing was that Jesus had done to take way his sins. He did not know. I began to explain the atonement to him, that he owed God a perfect life. He couldn’t live it and everything he did took away life, stealing someone’s stuff they had spent their life acquiring. Everything came down to life. He resonated with that. I explained the payment for his sins, that Jesus blood was filled with life of infinite value because he was the creator God. “So that’s the key,” he said. I agreed it was and explained the righteousness Christ earned. This was his through adoption he needed to receive Christ by faith to have the right to become a child of God. He asked if it was enough to believe it, did that reach his soul? I said he should look like he believed but your will and your mind were your soul and though you would leave your body behind at some point your will and mind would go with you when you died. He seemed to see that was true and agreed. I asked if he wanted to be forgiven for his sins. He did. I showed him the prayer. “Can I have this?” he asked.  “Yes and you can pray it right now,” I replied. Saying it could be silently, “I wouldn’t hear you but God would hear and you’d know you were forgiven,” I replied. “I’ll pray it out loud,” he said assing, “Now I have to really think about this so I will mean it.” Then he prayed to receive Christ as I prayed too taking off my hat. He’d gotten a message someone was waiting for him. I told him I would be praying for him each day and I gave him Bible Promises for You I wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. I gave him a Bible study and The Case for Christ Answer Booklet. I gave him a hug and we battered a bit more and he said, “One more time,” hugging me and saying, “God bless you.” “God bless you too,” I replied and he headed off.

I sat back down and wrote a couple things down and then walked ahead through like a mini lounge up on the third floor. I was kinda feeling worn so I turned down the connecting hallway heading south. I walked by Shawn sitting in a sofa armchair with an empty chair across from him and turned back to ask him. He had straw blonde hair a bit long on top. Was a solid guy and wore a plaid shirt and tan pants. He shook my hand as he sat down. He had a round head and a smaller face. Kind of an average everyman looking guy, 25 years old. He started talking to me about a lot of things. He had been the Navy. It turned out he personally thought China was our worst threat and so he always put in for the Pacific theatre. He’d gone in to be a computer tech but they made him a mechanic. I said with all the AI he might find being a mechanic more profitable. He said he’d thought that but he was back in school learning computer science anyway and at times not sure it was the right idea. We talked about the Navy, war, threats to society and agreed on everything interestingly enough. We’d spent too much time talking already that I new he’d probably have to take off. (It’s always a press for time with impromptu conversations and even more so on campus where they have a goal.) I said, “Well let me just ask you the big question. “You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus. So you’re dead. And you stand before God and he says, “Why should I let you into Heaven?’ What would you say?” “I don’t know. I think that’s the whole thing. I’m not really worthy to go to Heaven. It’s up to Him from here, [it’s not up to] that person.” It turned out he wasn’t really raised in a church with his mom but had gone with his grandmother. He didn’t mention his dad at all. I began to go through the gospel with him and I explained the atonement and that blood had been a payment for his sins and cleansed him. He knew the basic thing that Jesus was God and had died. I explained God’s righteousness and adoption and salvation by faith. I asked if he would want to be forgiven trusting in Jesus and he said, “Yeah I would want to be forgiven.” I said there was a prayer he could pray I read it he agreed it expressed the desire of his heart. I said he could pray it silently if wanted and he said, “OK.” He prayed to receive Jesus. He didn’t have a Bible so I gave him one and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. I gave him Bible Promises for You and The Case for Christ Answer Booklet. I gave him a Bible study but just cited one quick example. He thought he might come to a Bible Study some time. I said that he had been on the track and just needed a bit more. He agreed he needed “a nudge over,” he’d been right on the edge and had been looking now on the plateau. We spoke of how God sent me along to give him the next piece. He asked for my contact information. He shook my hand saying as he did, “Once again, I appreciate it.” “You’re welcome,” I replied. “Have a good day.” And he headed off to a veterans meeting at school, thanks to me he was a little late.

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

In Him,

Bob