(upbeat music)

- On fire for his faith.

As a teenager, MicahWilder was a superstar

in the LDS Latter Day Saints Church.

He worked tirelessly in the Mormon temple,

leading up to his two-year mission trip.

Then, just months into his mission,

Micah was confronted with a challenge.

What was it?

Take a look.

- [Narrator] Author Micah Wilder

was raised in a devout Mormon family.

As a passionate follower of his faith,

he worked tirelessly to earn his salvation

through good works.

After high school,

Micah embarked on a two yearmission for the Mormon church.

Four months into his trip,

he approached a Baptist minister

with the intent ofconverting him to Mormonism.

The pastor met his effortswith a surprising challenge.

In his book, "Passport to Heaven",

Micah shares his spiritual journey

of leaving a religion based on human works

to embracing thelife-changing love of God.

- Please welcome to "The700 Club" Micah Wilder.

Micah, it's nice to have you with us.

You grew up in a devout Mormon family.

Tell us what your faith meantto you during that time.

- When I was growing up,my faith was everything.

My religion defined me, it was my identity

and every facet and aspectof my life was rooted,

in my relationship with Godthat I was seeking to establish

through my faithfulness to Mormonism.

- We've all seen the fresh-facedyoung men on their bicycles

in their shirts and ties,

knocking on doors in our neighborhoods,

how important was thattwo-year mission trip to you?

- It was very important to me.

In fact, it was kind of like

a cultural rite of passage for me.

And I was very excitedabout this opportunity

to go out and to serve myreligion, to serve my church

and to serve God for two years,

and do what I believedGod was calling me to do.

- So you wind up going intothis Baptist pastor's church

and you went in with theintention of challenging him

and converting him.

In the end, he challengedyou to something.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, so I engagedwith this Baptist pastor,

with the intent that Iwas going to bring him

into my religion,

and I believed as I had been taught

that the Mormon church

was the exclusive way to eternal life.

And as a result of this experience

and this encounter withthis Baptist minister,

he very lovingly and gentlyshared the gospel with me.

And at the end of this experience,

he challenged me to read the New Testament

through the eyes of a child

and that challenge ultimately set my life

on a trajectory thatwould change everything

that I'd ever known and loved.

- Your life radically changedover a two year period.

And I mean, it was challengingto me as a Christian to read

how the scriptures hadso jumped into your heart

and began to define the way you thought.

In the end, you came to Christ,

you realized that in your Mormon faith,

you had been trying to do service for God,

to win your way to heaven,

to become really seenin the church as valued.

In the end you became abeliever in Jesus Christ,

recognizing that he wasthe only thing you needed

for salvation.

You were actually threatenedwith excommunication,

ultimately you left the church.

Tell us about that.

- So as I was on this two year mission,

I was going throughout this process

of reading the New Testament daily.

I actually read the New Testamentin its entirety 12 times

while I was a missionaryfor the Mormon church,

and it was through thewater of the word of God

that washed me and cleansedme and opened my eyes

to the sufficiency of what Jesus Christ

did for me on the cross,

and I realized that I could no longer,

you know endeavor to earn

or establish my righteousness with God,

through my faithfulness to Mormonism,

but I could only trust inthe finished and completed

and perfect work of Jesus

that was accomplished on the cross.

and so I became born againas a Mormon missionary

and ended up being put in asituation where I was challenged

by my Mormon leadersabout my faith in Jesus,

and ultimately led to me

terminating my mission three weeks early

and having to go back to Utah

and face the cultural andrelational repercussions

of my new found faith.

- I'm not sure people realize

what kind of letting go that involves.

This must've been hard on your family,

you had a fiance,

your whole family was veryinvolved in the Mormon church.

Tell me what you felt when you realized

making this commitmentto Jesus Christ meant

walking away from everythingthat defined who you were?

- Yeah, I mean, at that time of my life,

my mother was actually atenured professor at BYU,

the Mormon University,

my father was a high priestin the Mormon church,

and every relationship andevery aspect of my life was

because of my faithfulness to Mormonism.

And I remember goingthrough this experience

where I was facing this crossroads,

and that crossroads was eitherto do as Christ commanded,

and to take up my cross and deny myself

and lose my life sothat I could find it or

I would, you know findmy life and lose it.

And so I was challengedby the gospel, by Jesus,

you know calling me into discipleship,

but I also realized in that moment that,

it didn't matter what Ilost or what I gave up

or what I would have tosacrifice for the gospel

because the gain that I had in Christ

was infinitely any eternally greater

than anything that I would ever lose.

And like Paul said,

everything I counted as gain in my life,

I consider them as loss

compared to the surpassingworth of knowing

Christ Jesus is Lord.

- You have a great heartfor the LDS people.

As Christians what's the bestway for us to reach them?

- We have to reach them with love.

And I had a lot of encountersas a as a Mormon missionary

in the state of Florida where Christians

did not reach out to me in love,

but they were unkind,they were self-righteous,

they were judgmental, theywould slam doors in our face.

And my encouragement to the Christian body

is that we have tospeak the truth in love,

and we have to be boldwitnesses of the gospel,

but we have to do it withgentleness and respect

as we are commanded to do in scripture.

- Yeah we have to know what we believe

and be able to share it to do that.

Micah, your book is a challengeto Christians and I'm sure

a truth offered to all who are looking for

what the Bible really has to say.

You've written a fascinating book

about your journey tofaith in Jesus Christ.

It's called "Passport to Heaven",

it's available wherever books are sold,

I highly recommend it.

All of us need to read this

and read what the scripture says about

what it means to livefor and walk with Christ

on a daily basis.

Thank you.

Great to have you with us today.

- Thank you, Terry.