Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope the end your week was blessed walking with the Lord. We had a good week on campus. Wednesday we had a table day for the Clubs and Activities fair and got a few more peeps interested in Bible Study on campus for the Discipleship part of the Ministry. We got to hang out with a half dozen or so of the peeps from the bible study, which is fun for Ellen who does not get to see them as often as I do and I enjoy being with Ellen for a day. We went through the Gospel with three kids and two, both named Grace, seemed close to believing the Truth.  There is a lot of discipleship just in clearly explaining the Gospel and imputation to a couple hundred Christians on campus each year. Bible study is fun for us and Ellen has some solid relationships with some of the girls who come.

On Thursday, John prayed to receive Christ. He was sitting near the revolving doors (on the next floor up) in a set of chairs at the top of the stairs in the SRC building. He was a regular looking guy, a bit thin, just under 6 foot with sandy hair wearing a two button top shirt under a black jacket and jeans and had braces.  He was looking at his phone. He was thoughtful, and he described himself as “intellectual, not athletic”. He said he’d answer some questions for the Bible study group. John was from a Roman Catholic Background. He really tuned into the Gospel, not knowing more than that Jesus died for sin. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven, he thought for a while then said, “If I had to pick like one of the deeds I’ve done what would be the one?” sort of restating what the question implied to him. He finally landed on, “Whenever people come to me for help I’ll usually do whatever I can to help them.” He thought he had about a 50% chance of going to Heaven, saying he had “Some improvement to do.” It was interesting that he seemed to search in his mind for some kind of stand-out performance that would truly merit Heaven. Some students think of their sins and don’t feel they would very likely go. But John seemed to think he hadn’t been exceptionally good. I talked him through the Gospel and many verses, and he wanted to be forgiven when offered. So I asked him if he had been thinking about what Jesus had done, trusting in that to be forgiven. He seemed to struggle again for an answer, though his previous thoughts suggested he felt he needed to earn it. He seemed relieved when I said there was a prayer he could pray, receiving God’s forgiveness and was he glad to pray it. He prayed silently to receive Christ.  I explained the Christian life to him and gave him a bible study which he really thought was interesting on the way Jesus claimed to be God in the Bible. He also took the book 20 Things God Can’t Do.  I explained that all the conditional things the book speaks about are done by the Spirit. “Like if you had a sales job and the leads your supervisor gave you were so good that when you walked in the door people would say to you, ‘Oh great you’re here. I wanna buy this right now.’ God gives you the power inside you by His Spirit to do everything He is asking you to do.” John was grateful, and as I stood up to go he stood up with me just to shake my hand and thank me sincerely. I’d talked to him for a long time and was thankful to God to see a guy grateful to grasp his salvation in Christ. I had some other seeds to plant and then headed home.

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

In Him,

Bob