Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed today walking with the Lord. I had a good day on campus and Braiam prayed with me to receive Jesus. Please pray he grows in his faith. His story is below if you have time.

Braiam was sitting in a row of chairs on the south side of the BIC building just before the last lounge as you walk west. He was wearing a black quilted winter coat and blue and black plaid pajama pants and was small in stature. He was athletic. He had inch long black bangs with flat straight hair on top, a fade on the sides and a sort of pointed nose and straight jaw line. He was clean-shaven. I asked him one thing he wanted to do before he died and he said, “Find peace, be OK with life. Be peaceful.” I asked him then, “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 would say proley (sic) that I know I committed sins, there is no reason to let me in…,” he paused then for a moment and said, “I actually don’t know.” I asked the likelihood he would go to Heaven and he thought 50/50. He went on to say, “I’m Catholic I have to say I’m sorry for my sins to and stuff get into Heaven.” I began to go through the Gospel with him and saying God had to take away his sin so He could live inside him I asked what Jesus had done back in History to take away the sins of the world. “He sacrificed His Son,” he replied. I said, “Right he died for you.” I went on to explain the blood of Christ cleansing him from sin and being a payment to God. I told him that Jesus earned the righteousness of God, which was to his credit and that God adopted him and gave him all these things. He needed to receive Jesus by faith, believing Jesus was God, had died for his sins and rose from the dead. “Not that you just know the story but that that’s what you put your trust in so that if someone would say to you, ‘Why should God let you into Heaven?’ you’d say, ‘Because Jesus died for me.’”. Grace by Faith saved him. I asked then if he would want to be forgiven for his sins trusting in what Jesus had done or thought something else and gave him the options in short of Islam and the Buddha. And then asked if when he was asking for forgiveness for his sins, if he was hoping that he was doing enough with church and stuff, or if he was trusting in what Jesus had done to be forgiven, or if he had not really put it all together. He said he compared himself to Jesus as a model. “Well, if you’d like to be forgiven for your sins trusting in what Christ has done there’s a prayer you could pray,” I said and talked him through the prayer. I asked if it expressed the desire of his heart. He nodded so I said he could pray it silently, I wouldn’t hear him but God would hear and he’d know he was forgiven. “I’ll pray it silently,” he replied and he took the booklet and prayed to receive Jesus. I went on to explain the Christian life, praying and reading the Bible and confessing to God when you fail. I explained then the Christian life “By the Spirit’s Power.” And then said Christianity was unlike other religions where you simply do good things on the outside but that you instead ask God to transform you on the inside; you become a good person and then you do good things. I explained the fruit of the Spirit giving him Galatians 5:22,23. I recited them and then said he could ask for more peace from God and ask for more faith when he had doubts and said, “Doubt your doubts and ask God for more faith, faith is a gift.” He appreciated that and then I told him the likelihood he would now go to Heaven was 100% trusting in the righteousness of Jesus. “Yeah,” he said agreeing. “Thank you so much,” he said. I said I didn’t know if I would see him again as it was the end of the semester but I would pray a Bible verse for him each day, from now until Spring and one year after asking God to bless him. I gave him Bible Promises for You and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front and he was grateful. I gave him a Bible study and The Case for Christ Answer Booklet explaining each. I also said that the symbolism of the Mass was that the wine was symbolic of Jesus blood and the wafer symbolic of His body and it is to remind you that He died for you and so you are forgiven. “So when you take it you should just say, “Thank You.” The students were going into his classroom so I said, “If I see ya I’ll just say hi.” “Thank you so much Bob,” he replied. “You’re welcome,” I replied and he headed into class.

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

In Him,

Bob