If I were to summarize my life in a handful of words, “surrender” is near the top of the list. It’s why I love Romans 12:1. It says: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” When I was eighteen, I’d read about a missionary who’d contracted leprosy. I was haunted by the story. One day, I felt the Lord asking: Luis, are you willing to give your life for the sake of others? Are you willing to even get leprosy for Me?

Finally, peace replaced my tension, and I knew the honest answer. "Yes, Lord, I’ll do whatever You ask. Even if it means risking leprosy for the sake of the Good News, I’ll do it." It was a moment of surrender. A moment of becoming a “living sacrifice.”

The concept of giving all for the Lord was not abstract to me. Before my father’s death, he showed me the power that comes when a person says, “Everything I have is for the Lord.” Thinking of my father forces me to consider what areas of my life I am holding back from the Lord. Perhaps you should consider it too. There is no better time to surrender than right now, and so reach your world.

This is Luis Palau.

One of my all-time favorite verses is Psalm 37:4. It says: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” When we delight in the Lord, He places desires in our hearts that He plans to fulfill anyway. The desires of God’s heart become the desires of our hearts. Extraneous, carnal, egotistical things fall away. You focus on the delight.

I am months, maybe weeks, away from heaven. The only thing I can say to you is, “Draw near to God.” Delight in Him. Let the stream of the Holy Spirit’s work carry you to the heart of the Father. In you is the life of Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us. How amazing that is!

God’s still, small voice says to me, “Stay, Luis. Know me a little better here.” So I try to obey. I sit. I listen to God’s Word like I have not done in ages, with a freshness that is given depth by the realization that my faith will soon become sight. I listen carefully and personally, not merely to teach others but to be taught myself.

God wants to meet you. Will you make room for delight today? Sit down. Get quiet. Open God’s Word. Thank Him. I’m praying you’ll experience God's joy filling you once again today.

This is Luis Palau.

If I were to summarize my life in a handful of words, “delight” jumps to the top of the list. That’s why I love Psalm 16:11. It says: “You [Lord] make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

All of the best periods of my life have been times I simply delighted in the Lord. He is my loving Father, He is my kind Master, He’s the One with greater patience than we can imagine. Joy, full blessing, laughter—those are the hallmarks of our relationship with God.

It is possible to obey and serve Him without delighting in Him. It is possible to forget that the crux of it all is this: we’ve received good news from a good God. True, unfading joy comes only from delighting in His presence.

Psalm 37:23 says, "The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.” You and I continue to be called into God’s delight. Are you delighting yourself in Him today? Are you close to the One who has defeated the power and fear of death? Turn to Jesus. Delight in Him and He will bless you tremendously in the days ahead.

This is Luis Palau.

You know you are in the right spot, when someone says, “How can this be?!” For something miraculous is about to happen. Mary was greatly troubled in the Gospel of Luke, when an angel of the Lord explained to her that she would conceive a son. “How can this be?!” is what first wells up inside of her. Being a virgin, Mary knew that only God could accomplish this. And when the angel explains that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, she exclaims, “Be it unto me according to your word.”

And now Mary had to face great challenges. She would have to explain to her fiancé. There would be judgment from her community. But Mary had received her call and by faith she humbly submitted to it.

God has a special calling for each of us as well. The call God gives us, His followers, is to go and make disciples of all the nations. The calling is to your workplace, your school and community, and even around the world. We must go. In that broader calling, God will call you specifically to serve sacrificially, to testify verbally, and to share the Good News. And as doors open to share the Good News, we will, like Mary, have moments of “how can this be?!” So what is stopping us from following the call? Put that aside for a moment, to get started, let’s first say, “Be it unto me according to your Word.” Together, let’s follow our call, according to His word, and we will reach our world.

This is Andrew Palau.

When Corrie ten Boom’s grandfather opened his watch shop, he made it known that the family home above the shop was open for anyone in need. A hundred years later, this meant that the ten Booms used their home to hide Jews from the Nazis.

Hidden behind a wall was “the hiding place.” Corrie and her family could hide up to seven people who were either wanted by the Nazi government for being Jewish or helping Jews escape. The ten Booms were not Jews themselves; they were devoted followers of Jesus. But they believed the Jews needed to be protected.

The ten Booms did this for two years, until the Nazis found out. The entire family was arrested and sent to concentration camps. The four refugees hiding in their home at the time were not found by the Nazis and survived. Corrie’s father and sister died in the concentration camp, but Corrie lived. Corrie realized she survived for God’s purpose — to proclaim a message of forgiveness to everyone who would hear it.

The Lord commands us, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” When we are doing the right thing, or when forgiving others who have wronged us, the Lord will be with us. He will use our bravery to reach our world for His glory.

This is Luis Palau.

Amy Carmichael knew she was called to be a missionary after she heard Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China, speak. The only problem was that she had a chronic illness that made her tired and feverish. Amy served in Japan for a while until she became too ill to continue her work. Finally, she went to a South Asian nation for her health. That is where she found her true calling.

There she met a little girl named Preena. Preena had been given by her mother to the local religious temple in exchange for favor from the gods. Girls who worked at the temples eventually became temple prostitutes. This little girl had run away many times, but she did not have a place to go. Because of her, Amy founded a place called the Dohnavur Fellowship where young girls could find refuge. A few years later, they opened a hospital and a home for boys, so that everyone could get the help they needed. Amy spent over 53 years in that nation, never taking a break from her ministry.

In Psalms, it says that God is a “father to the fatherless.” Following God’s example, Amy became a mother to children who had been rejected by their families. They even began calling her “Amma,” which means “mother.” As Amma Amy did, we should be looking for those in our lives, like Preena, who need to know God’s love and protection.    

This is Luis Palau.

It was night when Harriet Tubman crossed over the border from the South into the North and became a free woman. Born a slave, she escaped from that life, running through the woods at night and hiding during the day. When she finally made it, she said she felt like she was in heaven.

But many others were still in slavery, and so Harriet could not rest in her own freedom. Over the next eight years, she made at least thirteen trips back and forth to save others. She was assisted by the Underground Railway, a system of people and places that hid escaping slaves. Most of these people were Christians, and Harriet herself was a devout follower of Christ. She trusted God to keep her and her fellow travelers safe. Harriet took great strength from the Old Testament tales of deliverance. In all of her journeys, she was never caught, and neither were any of the people she was bringing to freedom. Because of this, many called her “Moses,” as she delivered her people from slavery with God’s help.

When God told Moses to rescue the Israelites from Egypt, God promised him, “I will be with you.” Harriet believed that God was with her, and He was. By her brave actions, Harriet told slave-owners to let her people go. Just like Jesus did for us, Harriet reached her world and brought people to freedom, one dark night at a time.            

This is Luis Palau.

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!” This hymn may be familiar to you. It is a beautiful song that talks about praising Jesus for the gift of heaven “all the day long.” The second verse of the hymn imagines what heaven will look like. It says, “visions of rapture now burst on my sight.” Those of us who can see beautiful things like mountains and the ocean only have the smallest understanding of the beauty of heaven. But the writer of this hymn, Fanny Crosby, was born in 1820 and became blind as a baby. She grew up not being able to see the world around her. So when she wrote this line, she was not only imagining what heaven would look like, she was imagining what it would be like to SEE.

Even without sight, Fanny wrote almost 9,000 hymns, some of which churches still sing today. She lobbied in New York City for education for those with disabilities. She felt called to serve the poor in urban areas, which she did for many years of her life. She served God faithfully without her sight.She really took to heart the Bible verse that says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” She did not let her disability slow her down. Despite her lack of sight, she spent her days praising Jesus by composing hymns and serving the poor. Fanny reached her world for Jesus, and now she can see in eternity!

This is Luis Palau.

My Dad loves the question, “What is a real Christian?” What a simple yet profound question. First, a Christian trusts Jesus Christ, believes Him, and relies on Him. Second, a Christian obeys the Lord. To open your heart to Jesus Christ is not just to believe in Him, but also to follow Him.

Some people have told me, “If I give my life to Christ, I’m afraid I won’t follow Him, that I’ll fail Him. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I already see too many people like that.” But when you open your heart to Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you, giving you the power to obey and faithfully witness to His name [Acts 1:8].

When we sin, that doesn’t catch God off guard. He has provided a way for restoration. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”Until we see the Lord face to face, we won’t be totally without sin. But Philippians 1:6 tells us that we can be confident “that He (God) who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Part of God’s good work in us is to accomplish good works through us [Ephesians 2:10]. As Christians, we can be sure that we are God’s workmanship, a new creation in Christ Jesus.              

This is Andrew Palau.

Committing one’s life to Jesus Christ is the most important decision anyone can ever make. I grew up deeply respecting my parents and their faith, but for several years I resisted owning up to my sins and receiving Jesus Christ as my Savior.

One summer just before entering my teens, I attended a two-week Christian camp in the mountains of Argentina, where I grew up. My camp counselor’s name was Frank Chandler. One night Mr. Chandler and I talked about what it means to become a Christian. Turning in his Bible to Romans 10:9-10, Mr. Chandler read to me: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

We talked about what these verses teach and then Mr. Chandler encouraged me to commit my life to God. I prayed: “Lord Jesus, I believe You were raised from the dead. I confess You with my lips. Give me eternal life. I want to be Yours. Save me from hell. Amen.”

That night I could hardly sleep, I was so excited about committing my life to Jesus Christ. I knew I was saved. I had eternal life. I was a member of God’s family forever. Do you have that same assurance? If not, make sure today.

This is Luis Palau.