Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope you had a blessed day walkin’ in the light of His word. I had a good day on campus. I taught a Bible study and Luis prayed to receive Jesus today. Please pray he grows in his faith. His story is below if you have some time. Alexia did not have assurance of salvation; she answered the question wrong but thought she was believing on Jesus after I went through the Gospel so I encouraged her and gave her a Bible Study. And I talked to a guy Ricky who had been in Cook County on a gun charge and was wearing the ankle bracelet for another month. He’d receive Christ in prison and we talked about how scary that place is spending a month surrounded by murderers. That was interesting, I talked to him quite a while after I went through the Gospel with him and encouraged him in the Christian life. He looked like a boy. God really kept him in there and he realized it had been a blessing he’d been caught. I gave him some books and a Bible Study.

 Luis was sitting at a table in the PE lounge. He was wearing black sweats and a black and light shade of patterned black (kind of camo) short sleeve shirt.  There were few people in the room, though a couple guys (both Christians) I had talked to before rolled by us and said hi. One knew him also but looked at his face and kept going as we were in the middle of the gospel then and he was dead serious. He had his headphones on, pulled them up to pinch his head as I asked him. I said as he looked up and saw his face, “Oh I’ve talked with you before.” He said I had asked him to do a student survey before. Then he’d said he didn’t have time. He had a mop of brown curls and a mustache the width of a pencil that was not as long as his mouth. He had a small goatee that was long enough for him to tug on {like a golf ball) which he did a bit as we talked. He’s a good-looking guy with kind of a hawk nose rounded on the bridge. He agreed to do a survey saying, “You can talk to me about it.” I asked him one thing he would like to do before he died and he said, “Leave my family financially stable.” 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 you probably shouldn’t to be honest,” he replied. I asked what he thought it was that got someone into Heaven. “Following Him, [as] one of His disciples, His sons,” he said. He said he had gone to church when he was younger and that he believed, “I just haven’t been following it. I stopped following the rules He wants a man to follow,” He confessed. I began to go through the Gospel with him, he knew Jesus had died for the sins of the world and he was very serious and listened carefully but either looked at the booklet or over to the corner where no one was sitting and didn’t meet my eyes. There was a lot of activity in the gym, some group, I think they were all women, were swinging their legs back and forth on one foot through the glass doors. But he wasn’t distracted, he listened to the analogies and the verses. He even gave a word of ascent here and there and said, “Right.” I explained all I usually say about the blood of Christ to cleanse him and be a payment for sin. Jesus lived a perfect life for us, His righteousness to our credit, Jesus was our robe of righteousness our garment of salvation.  “You don’t go to Heaven because you are good but because Jesus is good and you’re connected to Him. Like if you marry a millionaire you got a million bucks. Or if you get adopted into a billionaire’s family you get to live in the mansion and drive the cars. So God adopts you into His family and gives you 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 someplace to go, Heaven, and something to wear when you get there, the robe of God’s righteousness.” I was praying as I talked that God would work. I explained that he was saved receiving Christ, believing Jesus is God died for your sins and rose from the dead, “Not that you just knew the story but that that’s what you put your trust in, so if someone would say to you, ‘Why should God let you into Heaven?’ you’d say, ‘Because Jesus died for me.’ That would mean you had faith in Jesus and faith saves you.” I read him the verses.  I asked him if he would want to be forgiven for his sins trusting in what Jesus had done. Then the Spirit would live inside him and give him strength and take him to Heaven when he died or did he believe something else and I told him the CliffsNotes version of Islam and the Buddha. “So would you want to be forgiven for your sins?” I asked again. He nodded. So I said, “Well if you want to be forgiven there’s a prayer you can pray.” I talked him through it and asked if it expressed the desire of his heart he nodded again and so I said he could pray it silently and know he was forgiven. I slid him the open booklet and he looked at it. Then he stared off to the corner again and then he pulled his shirt up at the neck like an NBA player using the collar to wipe sweat from his face for a free throw over his eyes. I sat and then looked down and waited a minute. Finally he recovered himself and took the booklet and looked at the prayer and prayed to receive Christ. When he’d finished I said, “Amen?”  and he nodded. I reached out offering him my hand and said, “Your sins are forgiven man,” and he shook it. “I appreciate it,” he said. I explained the Christian life to him and encouraged him that the power of the Spirit was the way we lived the Christian life. Inside out. I told him I had a couple books for him and 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 telling him Strobel’s story. I told him I would keep him in my prayers each day praying a Bible verse for him until Spring and one year after. I gave him a Bible study on the deity of Christ. “I appreciate it man,” he said, “Sorry for tearing up on you.” “It’s all good man if it’s real it’s all-good,” I said shaking his hand. Tough looking dude. I told him if I saw him I’d just say hi, no strings attached and I headed off. It kind of took it out of me so I headed out and down the hall and around the corner and sat on the floor and took some notes and took a minute headed for the Bible Study.

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

 In Him,

Bob