PORTLAND, OR – Last year, doctors told evangelist Luis Palau that he would not be alive past Christmas 2018 due to his battle with stage four lung cancer.

This week Kevin Palau announced on Facebook that his father’s health was “much better than doctors had anticipated.” Six months past the predicted month of his demise, his son is thankful “we get to have him around for a while longer.”

Over the past year, the senior Palau has been working on a new book. Palau: A Life on Fire will be available to the public in bookstores beginning June 4^th.

The 240-page book takes readers on a journey of faith and ministry that began when the Argentinian teenager surrendered his life to Jesus Christ after hearing Billy Graham speak. Palau was determined to do more than trust the Lord but also to commit himself to reach the lost in the footsteps of Dr. Graham.

Palau honors faithful believers from whom he has learned many of life’s most important lessons. Some, like his wife, Pat, and the late Ray Stedman, will be well-known to readers. Others include the unseen, unknown people whom the Lord used to stoke the fire burning inside the international preacher and ambassador of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The book is not a memoir, but rather, a tool to point people to the cross. He explains this in the appropriately titled first chapter, “Seek First the Kingdom.”

“These days, I’ve been thinking a lot about the cross. My cancer has put the fire under me – as if it wasn’t there already! It has made me a holy fiend upon the subject of the cross. The cross of Jesus has been the center of everything. It must be the center of everything. It must be the center of my life. It must be the center of yours. I must see myself in the light of the cross and remember I am nothing without Jesus.

“And neither are you, whoever is reading this. We all face the grave. Let’s not kid ourselves. We talk about it throughout life. For me, though, death has always seemed distant. It doesn’t anymore. I think of the gaping dark hole that death could have been for me. But that grave has been swallowed up in victory. Its sting broken. Why? Because of Jesus Christ!

“Great revivals come when the cross of Jesus is preached. The cross puts everything in focus.”

The publisher, Zondervan, describes the book as “a deeply spiritual and intimate interview with a man who knows life is drawing to an end but is only seeing the light grow.”

Having appeared on platforms before millions of people around the globe, he understands the spotlight has often been shining on him – which is not what he has ever desired. In a report to Christian News Wire, he shared that he “clearly felt the Lord telling me to take the focus off myself [and] . . . to point to the cross.”

How gracious and fitting it is for the Lord to lengthen Luis Palau’s life so that his legacy of pointing people to the cross will continue through a life that has been relentlessly on fire for Christ.

May we all grasp an ember from that fire and allow the Holy Spirit to fan it into flames that reach yet others with the Good News.

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