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My name is Jake Miller. I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was baptized at age 8, read the Book of Mormon, and had my “testimony” of the church around age 14. I became zealous for my faith, wanting to share it with all those in my life. However, I was struggling inside, knowing that I could only exercise the priesthood based upon principles of righteousness. I knew I was a “mistake maker” and intellectually could ascent to the idea that I was a “sinner,” but I suppressed it.

I hoped that I had done enough good that I would make it to the Celestial Kingdom, yet I struggled with anxiety over my eternal state. While preparing to serve my mission, I had some severe and odd health problems, including kidney problems which led me to continually thirst but never be satisfied. God was taking away the things which I prided myself in, including my health and relationships. I found myself with a lot of time to read, and seeing as I had read all the standard LDS works except for the New Testament, I figured if I served a mission in the Bible Belt, I would need to know the New Testament, so I began to read.

God opened my eyes in His Word. I learned of the cost of discipleship as Jesus said in Matthew 10:34-39:

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.”

Through my reading and the Holy Spirit giving me understanding, I came to an honest conviction of my sin and recognition that God should send a sinner like me to hell, the lake of fire and sulfur according to his law (Matthew 5:20, Revelation 21:8). I also read that if I put my faith and trust alone in Jesus, I would be given everlasting life (John 3:16) and the righteousness of God that comes through faith to those who believe (Romans 3:21-6, Ephesians 2:1-10, Galatians 3:10-14). I found myself with the same faith as Paul, who said he wanted to “be found in (Christ), not having a righteousness of (his) own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,” (Philippians 3:9 adapted). God gave me living water to drink, and I drank deeply. (John 4, and 7)

I broke God’s Law, Jesus “bore our sins in His body on the cross” (1 Peter 2:24), and “canceled them out having nailed them to it” (Colossians 2:14), so even though I was legally guilty, I could have “boldness to enter directly into the holy of holies” (Hebrews 10:19) through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. Not based on me or my works but because of God and what he did.

For a time, I struggled immensely in my walk as a Christian, avoiding Christian community. I walked in sin and according to the flesh, but I came under the discipline of the Lord. My lung spontaneously collapsed. I came to learn that each breath is not my own to do with however I see fit, but a gift from God. My days and my breaths are numbered to God, and I am to use them to glorify him. Through God’s undeserved grace and providence, he brought an excellent wife into my life. God is sanctifying me through his Word, marriage, and a local Christian church that preaches God’s Word and encourages my wife and me as we work to follow the great commission of Jesus to go and make disciples of the nations.