By Bert Woodburn, Teaching Pastor

Opportunities arise from our many interactions when we ask the Holy Spirit to empower our discernment and discussions.  Grace Ministries hosts many study group discussions during the week and many more one-on-one mentoring and counseling sessions.

During one such session, the Holy Spirit helped me discern a deeper question when a young man asked me if deer suffered when they are injured.  I am always prepared for questions about how we get to Heaven, but I began to rethink the answer to his question.  As we continued to explore his seeking, we discovered his deeper question was about how God could be loving when he saw the suffering of an ill family member.

We discussed how God created us in His image with a path to enter Heaven.  Then he arrived at the question of whether or not he would enter Heaven if he died today.  We discussed the scriptures and how Christ died for our sins.  To receive God’s grace, we only need to truly accept Christ as our savior.

Praise be to God that the young man made the decision right then to accept Christ into his heart, and thus we began a deeper journey closer to his heart with an ongoing study of scriptures each week.