Contorting his face to show the gap

Jake lost his 2nd tooth (bottom left middle)

On the way to Jake's soccer game this morning...

"My tooth's about to come out."

A half second later...

"My tooth came out."

Jake's Salvation Story

Jake's Salvation Story 9/11/20

I had been praying for a while for Jake and his salvation. We were reading through the book "Leading Little Ones to God" and had just gone through the section about being reborn and trusting Jesus and Jake didn't really ask any questions. I have wondered for a while if he thought that he was 'saved' already because he believed in the Bible, so on 9/11/20, we were talking about how Jesus comes back again and raptures all of His believers to heaven before the tribulation. I told him about how some people think that at that time, cars will be left without drivers and planes without pilots. He just sat there with interest. I then asked him if he thought he was saved because that was the only way to go to heaven and be with Jesus. He said, "Yes, I mean I've been thinking about it. How do you do that?"

I told him that God makes it very simple (I had showed him the illustration of us standing on one side of the cliff with God on the other and how Jesus builds a bridge to God weeks before). God wants us to know that we are sinners. I asked Jake if he thought he was a sinner. He said yes. I asked him to tell me about some of his sins. He said not obeying, lying, I think he said being mean. I asked him how many times he thought he had sinned. He said, "Like 300" or I think he said "maybe even 3000".

I told him that the next part was to believe that Jesus was born on the earth and died on the cross and came back to life three days later. He said he believed all of those things.

I told him that the last part was that he had to decide that he wanted to put God in charge of his life and not Jake anymore – to the point of even persecution and suffering – that he needed to choose what God wants him to do instead of what Jake wants. He said he was willing and ready to do that.

I took him upstairs to pray because lots of people had been in and out of the room where we were talking. We sat on the bed in our room and I asked him the great question Beverly Keyes had asked Kate when she made at such a young age. I asked him if Jake, Chris, me, Pastor Marc, Jesus, and Steph Curry were on top of the church roof (he interrupted and asked if Giannis Antentakoumpo could be up there instead of Steph, so I said sure) and we all had a ball and there was a tiny bucket on the softball field, which of us could throw the ball into the bucket. He said "Jesus!" right away. Then he said, "But if the bucket was in the parking lot right by where we were, Giannis could just dunk it into the bucket."

I then went through the ABC steps again to make sure he was ready. He said he was and I had him repeat the prayer after me. His siblings – especially Drew and Ben were super excited – Ben came rushing up wanting to pray with him, but we had already prayed.

We talked about baptism and how that doesn't make you saved, but it's your witness to other people to get baptized. He's not too keen on getting his face wet, so he's not so sure about getting baptized yet. We'll work through that.

Kate, Chris, and I decided to get him a cake to celebrate his spiritual birthday.

 

A few days later...I was crying because of a decision we had to make regarding Kate and Covid. He told me later that when I was upset, he was over on the side praying for me to himself. I told him that the Holy Spirit had probably urged him to pray now that he has put God in charge of his life.