He was a tall, lean man; elderly, with a wild thicket of pure white hair. He stood at the front of the small church, tears streaming down his face, hands lifting out and up from his body.

Earlier that day, I drove to the northern Utah town to speak at this church about Mormonism and its heretical doctrines. I had my notes in order and was ready to explain the unbiblical doctrines of Mormonism to a packed church right in the middle of Mormon country.

After being introduced and welcomed by the pastor, I walked to the podium and scanned the faces of the crowd. After a few minutes of warm-up comments, I turned to my notes and stopped. I knew this was not the message thee people came to hear. They came to hear what was in my heart.

I looked up and began sharing my story, my journey into Mormonism, my life there and my journey out.   At the end of my sharing, I led the congregation in what Christians called an “altar Call” and asked those who had prayed with me and wanted that same peace of Christ and His gift at the cross to come forward.

Now I stood in front of this elderly gentleman with tears flowing down his cheeks. I reached up and took his face in both my hands, feeling his tears run through my fingers. Weeping with him, I cried, “If not one other person ever receives a new life in Christ in all my ministries, you alone are worth it all.”

 I asked him what he was feeling right then. He sobbed, Oh, The Joy, the joy.”

 That was many years ago and I never forgot that man and that night. I found out later that he was a Mormon Temple Worker, one of the most faithful of the faithful, yet heaven reached down and captured his heart. Others went forward that night as well, but sometimes I feel my hands are still wet from his tears.

I think one of the reasons I remember it as though it just happened today is that in some small way, I caught a glimpse of how Jesus must of felt when he died on the cross for you and me. Somehow, I knew he felt that I, personally, was worth it all, just as he felt you, too, were worth it all.

Over the years since, we have ministered to so many thousands who have found freedom from spiritual darkness through Christ and the cross, that it can be easy to put them all together as some sort of ministry statistic, yet each one is as singular to me as was this man and each of you..

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with full awareness and the clear memory of being there during the minutes in time when one of you stepped out of darkness into the light of Christ. These moments fill me with the holiness of Christ’s love for each of us and it continually draws me into a deeper zeal for souls.

That is why I am here, why I cry out to the Lord to be used of Him to reach the lost, why I stay up late in the nights praying over the names and requests that come my way. Why I write to you today, to beg you to not let a single chance go by to be ready to share the Good News of the Gospel.

And pray for me,

that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰ For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Eph 6: 19-20

May the Lord richly bless each one of you today.