Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed and the nearness of God was your good. I had a good day on campus and Connor and Amelia each prayed with me to receive Christ today. Please pray they both grow in faith. Their stories are below if you have time you want to spend.

Connor was in the hallway that leads down to the bookstore sitting in on of 4 stuffed chairs at a surrounding a circular ottoman. I sat down on one. He had brown curly hair poking out of the back strap gap on a truckers hat he’d turned backwards. Clean-shaven he had kind of a young David Hasselhoff look. He wore a winter coat and jeans. He was friendly. I asked him, “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?” “That’s a really good question,” he replied. “I am a believer in God. I committed myself to Him. I try to walk in His commandments. I’m a good person, I repented of my sins and I try to get better and better.” After hearing this I thought he was Catholic.  I asked the likelihood he would get into Heaven. He thought he had a 50/50 chance saying, “Ultimately it’s not up to me.” He added that he did not think you could be 100% certain or know until the end. I asked him if he went to church at all. He had been going to church locally but had been away at a different college and hadn’t reestablished the habit. Growing up he had gone to Wheaton Christian Grammar School and the Christian Academy for HS. Then he said the church he’d gone to, which I didn’t think was a good one, but it would have been technically evangelical. I began to go through the Gospel with him, he liked the idea of Christianity as a blood transfusion, God transfusing His life into you with His Holy Spirit. But first God had to take away your sin to make you His type. “What’s the big thing Jesus does back in history to take away your sin?” I asked him. “Baptism?” He guessed. Seeing he hadn’t got it right (I guess my expression tipped him off} he then said, “Evangelists?” I said I was an evangelist. I asked how Jesus had been a payment for his sins. “Oh he died on the cross,” he replied. I agreed and began to explain how that worked. He tracked with everything and I said all I usually say to communicate the Gospel. I asked if he would want to be forgiven for his sins or thought something else. He said he wanted to be forgiven so I asked if when he asked for forgiveness he thought he would be forgiven for being a good person and trying harder or if he thought he’d been forgiven because Jesus had died for him (reiterating his previous conditions). He had not been trusting in Christ. “If you want to be forgiven there’s a prayer you can pray.” I talked him through it and asked if he had asked for forgiveness before trusting in Jesus. He said he prayed and had heard a prayer like that before but had never prayed one. I said he could pray it silently and I wouldn’t hear him but God would hear, “Wanna do that?” I asked. “Yeah, I think I’ll do it.” He replied and he prayed then to receive Christ. I said he could keep the booklet, “Oh thanks!” he said. I explained then the Christian life to him and that God forgave him when he asked. I said everything in the Christian life was accomplished by the Spirit’s power. Christianity unlike other religions was living “Inside out not outside in.” First we ask God to transform us we become good men, and then we do good things. I said the likelihood he would now go to Heaven trusting in the blood and righteousness of Jesus was 100%. 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 told him I would keep him in my prayers each day from now until Spring and one year after asking God to bless him. He thanked me and I said if he was curious about a Bible study he could email me about the one I had described earlier and I headed off.

 Amelia was sitting in the PE lounge upstairs and said in helping me spell it, “Like Amelia Earhart”. She had freckles and was cute with an oval face and brown hair, stick straight in a sort of shag haircut that framed her face, thin lips with no crease under her nose like a Kim Possible cartoon. She had on a grey sweatshirt that was torn out around the neck and wore black leggings. She had seen me before because she worked at the desk in the PE. She’d been to a church that met on campus with a guy and his wife. They had moved away fortunately as they were preaching a work’s righteousness gospel plus baptism to save you. They might have been the New International Church of Christ though I had thought they met downtown; they just changed their leadership. It’s not uncommon for me to encounter kids going to their group who have not heard the Gospel of Grace. A couple of their students have prayed with me to receive Jesus. She wasn’t attending the group. I asked her, “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?” “It’ His will, His choice. I can only do everything I can in that. So it’s based on what I’ve done in life so I wouldn’t try to convince Him. He already knows everything.” I asked her the likelihood she would go to Heaven when she died. “At this point I don’t [think I would go to Heaven]. It isn’t very likely. I haven’t repented and I haven’t been baptized. I’m a religious person but I’m not one that calls other people to religion.” I began to go through the Gospel with her and she liked the analogies and clicked with what I was saying. When I asked her what Jesus had done to take away her sin so God could live inside her she knew Jesus had died. I explained Christ’s perfect life, His blood and righteousness. God adopted her and gave these things to her and she could receive this by faith. It was not her works that saved her, or baptism, which was a religious work. I asked her if she would want to be forgiven for her sins after explaining the CliffsNotes version of Islam and the Buddha. “Yes,” she replied. So I said if she wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer she could pray. I talked her through it. “I pray, nothing like this,” she replied. I said she could pray it silently and I wouldn’t hear her but God would hear and she’d know she was forgiven. “Wanna do it?” I asked. “Yeah,” she replied. She prayed then to receive Christ and after a minute or so she ended with a little burst of rejoicing and clapped 3 times happily. I explained the Christian life to her and I gave her Bible Promises for You writing her name and the date and forgiven in the front. “So you can have a record,” I said. I also write Ephesians 1:13 in the front and told her as soon as she believed the Spirit entered her and sealed her. “So He is stuck there,” she said. “Never coming out,” I replied. Jesus says “No one will pluck them out of my hand.” She was happy and said, “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.” I said “Thank you for talking with me.” I said I would keep her in my prayers from now until Spring and one year after, praying a Bible verse for her each day asking God to bless her. She was grateful and I headed off.

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

In Him,

Bob