{"id":46630,"date":"2021-03-11T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T21:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/blog\/?p=46630"},"modified":"2021-03-16T15:25:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:25:23","slug":"a-life-dedicated-to-evangelism-an-interview-with-luis-palau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/a-life-dedicated-to-evangelism-an-interview-with-luis-palau\/","title":{"rendered":"A Life Dedicated to Evangelism: An Interview with Luis Palau"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Luis<\/a>At the age of 83 in January 2018, international bilingual Christian evangelist Luis Palau, who died March 11, 2021, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer<\/a>. That startling revelation was the impetus for him to reflect on his adventure-filled life of trusting God from his humble beginnings on the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to filling stadiums and declaring the good news of Jesus Christ with tens of millions globally and personally counseling world leaders. How as a teenager, he heard Billy Graham speak and decided to follow in his steps.<\/p>\n

Bible Gateway interviewed Luis Palau<\/a> (@LuisPalauLive<\/a>) about his book, Palau: A Life on Fire<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Zondervan, 2019).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, The Beautiful Unity of the Church<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n

How is your book\u2014a \u201cspiritual memoir\u201d\u2014different from other types of memoirs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Buy<\/a><\/p>\n

Luis Palau:<\/strong> It isn\u2019t overly focused on me, but rather on the people that God used in my life: to bless me; to challenge me; to change me into who I am today. I want this book to encourage everybody\u2014whether you are a missionary or evangelist. I want it to encourage all Christians. God wants to use you in an extraordinary way!<\/p>\n

How did your Christian faith begin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luis Palau:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been asked this question often on the radio, or when we had a TV show and people would call in. People ask me often why I believe what I believe. How did I learn to believe in God? In one way, I learned from my parents. My father and mother demonstrated that God was everything. And even before I \u201cofficially\u201d became a Christian at age 12, I intellectually understood and believed that God was God.<\/p>\n

\"Buy<\/a><\/p>\n

What impact did the death of your father and your mother\u2019s struggles have on your faith?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luis Palau:<\/strong> It strengthened my faith on every level. My father died singing and clapping his hands, pointing to Heaven and taking off suddenly after saying, \u201cI am going to be with Jesus, which is better by far\u201d (from Philippians 1:23<\/a>). It\u2019s very defining. I was ten. I wasn\u2019t \u201cofficially\u201d a Christian at the time but I understood Dad was with the Lord. My mother used John 14:1-6<\/a> to encourage us about where our father was. The confidence of both my parents about Heaven marked my life then and still impacts me today. I proclaim the assurance of eternal life because I saw my father die with the absolute assurance of eternal life.<\/p>\n

We struggled a lot after my dad died and I witnessed my mother\u2019s faithful living through the struggles. We went from being well-off to having very little in just three years. I watched her trust the Lord. She absolutely never spoke against God or showed anger toward him. And she believed what the Bible said. She believed God would provide and, in one way or another, he always did.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n