Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: - Romans 5:12

Imagine a globe sitting on a desk. You walk up to the table, grab the globe, and spin it on its axis. After a few seconds you reach out with your index finger and stop the spinning globe. Wherever your finger lands, if it is a place inhabited by people, then at some point in time a grievance, injustice, or atrocity has occurred there. Although we live in 2025 amid the most advanced civilizations to ever exist on earth there has yet to be any technology, science, psychology, or philosophy to correct the most fundamental human problem, the sinful heart of man. After Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God, the hearts of mankind had become tainted, and like a dark thread interwoven throughout time the curse has connected all of us to that singular action in the Garden. Cain and Abel, the first brothers to be born on earth immediately fell victim to what would inevitably be within us all. Cain’s pride and jealousy gave birth to hate which manifested itself in the murder of Abel. Cain had the opportunity to love his brother, he killed him instead. Humanity’s attempts at rectifying evil, to overcome the sins that plague us all have lead only to more death and suffering in the name of achieving equity and earthly Utopia. Ever since the fall of humanity in the Garden, there has been a yearning from the thinkers, the great philosophers to try and understand our purpose, make sense of our existence, and rationalize suffering. There is a void at the center of every heart and it longs to be filled. However, the issue is that it cannot be filled with anything material. The void within us is spiritual. When humans and or governments try to implement the teachings of Nietzsche, Marx, or even Socrates the effort is always doomed to fail if the goal is perfection, for our sinful nature has and will always remain imperfect therefore corrupting any man made system or social structure.This is to say no matter how good the system, every individual person is tethered to the basic truth that “all have sinned”, which always leads us back to destruction as it did Cain. Adam and Eve walked with God Almighty; He loved them and communed with them, He was their reason for existence. When they were banned from the Garden of Eden the world became dark and dull, and what our hearts so desire is to be walking with God once again; this is what He had intended for us from the beginning. Nothing in our world can ever compare to speaking with God in the cool of the day, on a crisp morning, amidst the trees and walking among Creation in perfect harmony. Our reality turned to something lesser, a mere dream and fragment of that which was in the Garden when Creation lived united with the Creator. Every mortal soul now wanders about aimlessly, physically alive at present but spirituality asleep. Will there ever be something to awaken us from the self inflicted nightmare we find ourselves in?

For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. - Romans 5:17

At the Greater Heights Family Huddle this year Pastor Chris expounded upon the books written by the apostle John. Throughout his gospel and his letters John shares with us two extraordinary truths that are powerful beyond comprehension but also personal and comforting for any individual. Jesus, the man born in Bethlehem and whose ministry and message has spread across time and generations was not merely a prophet or philosopher; Jesus was there at the beginning of time itself, but not as an observer. He was there one with God because He is God the Creator, the one who walked with Adam and Even in the cool of the day. “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;”.”I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which is to come, the Almighty.” Jesus of Nazareth is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, He is the Lion and the Lamb, He is perfect love and He is perfect justice. Simply put, John reveals to us that Jesus was and is God, He is life and light. The earth after being introduced to sin had become dark; Jesus stepped down into our darkness to light the world and awaken humanity from the nightmare. John 1:4-5 says “ In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” The second truth John reveals is equally as powerful as is personal. 1 John 1:3 says “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Jesus, the creator of the universe is inviting you into a personal relationship with Him! This is the reason for His manifestation on earth. He came to pay our penalty for sin with the purpose of our redemption, and to draw us back to Him, to draw us into life eternal. As Pastor stated during Family Huddle, this is what it means to be a Christian, everything that is done by the local and global church, every Christian ministry and program has begun in order to draw people into this miraculous personal relationship with Christ. C.S Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else... the church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.” The dark thread interwoven by sin that linked us to Adam has now been changed to scarlet and held together by the blood of Christ that reunites us with God the Father.

Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. - Ephesians 5:14

In Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace one of the main characters named Prince Andrei has a dream after being mortally wounded. In his dream, he is healthy and sitting in a room, but a dark spirit (Death) is trying to enter and consume him. After a struggle Death breaks in and kills Prince Andrei. In the exact same moment Prince Andrei dies in the dream, he is woken up back into reality. He comes to the realization that “death is an awakening!” Jesus Christ stands at the door of every human heart knocking. The temporal life we experience is but a dream, the best it could ever be pales in comparison to the life eternal that Jesus offers that can begin today, even in this very moment. The life He offers is much greater than anything we can imagine, He offers us Himself. C.S Lewis says in Mere Christianity:

Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your

money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’

When a person dies to the self and accepts Jesus is the Lord, He freely gives eternal life because this is the only life He offers, nothing less . The sinner can come to Christ today and accept the gift of eternal life that Jesus offers. For the saint, it is daily required to choose to live for the eternal life and not for the temporal as Pastor Chris preached this past Sunday morning. 1 Timothy 6:12 says “ Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.” I would like to leave you the reader with a question. When you wake up every morning are you waking up into life, are you choosing to live after the eternal or the temporal? Very often Pastor Chris reminds us how we should start every morning. When the day begins we are faced with a decision. Will I live after my will, am I going to choose what I want, or do I kill it and choose Christ, choose the eternal? If we are to escape the dream, the rat race, the temporal life that is never satisfied we must surrender our will for Christ’s.

The great religious struggle is not fought on a spectacular battleground, but within the ordinary human heart, when every morning we awake and feel the pressures of the day crowding in on us, and we must decide what sort of immortals we wish to be. - Kathleen Norris

- Written by Jacob Littlefield 

The Son of Suffering 

Have you ever been going through something difficult and, even though your circumstances didn’t improve, there was comfort in talking to someone who had been through something similar? 

Perhaps you meet another couple who has lost a child. Or you cross paths with someone struggling to care for aging parents. Maybe it’s a widow struggling with life after loss. 

No matter the scenario, simply talking to someone who can relate acts as a balm to your hurting heart. 

When I was going through some of the darkest days of my life (doubting my salvation, depression, etc.), I felt so alone. No one seemed to comprehend my struggle. With good intentions, they tried to offer help. But they didn’t understand the pit I was in. 

When God opened my eyes to the root cause of my problem - OCD - which, perhaps will be a future blog post, I remember wanting to hear from others who had struggled with the same thing. The compulsive prayers, the endless doubts, the lack of assurance no matter how many Romans Road scriptures I knew. Hearing others’ testimonies brought hope and made me see I wasn’t alone. 

Yet the other morning on my way to work, the Holy Spirit spoke to me through some song lyrics, which I had actually heard multiple times before. But that morning, it was different. 

How can it be? 

There’s a God who weeps 

There’s a God who bleeds 

Oh praise the One 

Who would reach for me 

Hallelujah to the Son of Suffering 

Yes. God made us to be around others. He even uses other people who have been through similar trials to comfort us as they have received comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) 

But even when there is no human comfort, praise God, He is there. He understands. 

The Son of Suffering sees you, tired mom, praying over a wayward child. 

The Son of Suffering knows the ache of an empty womb, weary couple. 

The Son of Suffering comprehends the burden of caring for a loved one with an illness. 

The Son of Suffering understands the sting of a life filled with unmet expectations. 

Hebrews 4:15 tells us, ‘For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’ 

Jesus is touched by the feelings of our infirmities. Because of that, it goes on to say in verse 16, ‘we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.’ 

The pain may not go away. However, there is One - Jesus - who sees you in it. And not only does He see You, but He longs to comfort you. 

What grace. The Son of Suffering, suffering with us. 

But there’s more. 

The Son of Suffering suffered for us. 

Isaiah 53:5 says, ‘But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.’ 

Jesus took on the penalty that was meant for you and I. And because of His suffering, we can have eternal life when we repent of our sin and place our faith in Him. 

Romans 10:9,13, ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ 

The lyrics continue… 

Your cross, my freedom 

Your stripes, my healing 

All praise King Jesus 

Glory to God in Heaven 

We’re not promised a life free from all suffering. But we can find comfort in knowing that, when we do suffer, we are not alone. And, that the ultimate suffering of an eternity in Hell doesn’t have to be our fate. 

Oh, praise the One 

Who would reach for me 

Hallelujah to the Son of suffering!

They knocked on my door on a Saturday morning. My husband was gone to play tennis, both kids were playing video games downstairs with the sound on full blast and my house was a wreck. At nearly eleven AM I’m still hanging out in my bathrobe and pajamas, unwashed hair tossed up in a claw clip.

I couldn’t see them clearly through the translucent cling film on my front door. We didn’t need a new roof, my husband is our bug guy, and FOR THE LAST TIME, I’m not switching to AT&T. But there were three people, two men and a teenage girl. So what flavor of pseudo-Christianity would they be peddling?

No white button downs. Don’t Mormons wear button downs? Or is it Jehovah’s Witnesses?

I opened the door and stood on the threshold letting all the mosquitos in. They identified themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Vulnerable as I was in my pajamas outnumbered by strangers with my husband not home, they seemed more nervous than me. Across the great divide from the bottom of my front porch stairs the first man held out a pamphlet.

Would I read it? he asked. Yes, I answered.

Both sides hesitated then. I stood there wondering when they were going to ask to come inside. Isn’t that what normally happens? Instead they thanked me and left. Something felt unsaid. From an upstairs window I discreetly watched them canvas the entire culdesac, wondering which of my neighbors answered the door, which of them took the pamphlet like I did.

Some could say good riddance. Go away and never come back. God’s position on false teachers is clear in the Bible:

“For certain men, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into promiscuity and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” - Jude 1:4

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” - 1 John 4:1

“For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself is disguised as an angel of light” - 2 Corinthians 11:13-14

There’s an interesting story about Charles Taze Russell, the man who founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses. To sum it up, Russell claimed that he knew Greek and therefore needed to retranslate the Bible to suit his false teachings. His writings were criticized by another man,

Reverend J.J. Ross, so Russell sued him for libel. During the hearing Russell was unable to even recognize one letter of the Greek alphabet. If he lied about this, what else did he lie about? He certainly didn’t have the credentials to translate any document whatsoever. I think we could safely make the conclusion that he falls into the category of false teacher for this alone and not even considering the many failed prophecies he proclaimed.

I don’t want my neighbors to read the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ tracts. I don’t want them to internalize these false ideas about God that false teachers created. The idea that people that I care about could be led astray is upsetting.

But those three people who stood on my doorstep have been led astray. I don’t know their story but I want them to come back so they can share it with me. I regret allowing my internal struggles about appearance or insecurities to distract me from digging deeper with these people whom God loves. We could hate them–them or anyone else who comes to proselytize for any religion we don’t agree with–or we could choose to look at them as God does.

My greatest hope is in Jesus, that when I close my eyes for the final time I will open them in his presence. My salvation was freely given after Jesus paid for it in blood.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” - Romans 8:1

I am free from the power of sin in my life. Fear and anxiety, my greatest tormentors, have been conquered by Jesus.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us” - Romans 8:37

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in a works-based salvation. Only 144,000 people since the time of Jesus will be ‘sealed’ and the rest can only hope to survive a coming apocalypse. Now in the present time, the Witnesses believe that the door to ultimate salvation is shut.

To put it simply, Jehovah’s Witnesses are knocking on doors to earn their salvation. The three from my experience knocked on my door to hand me a pamphlet, one of many that they are obligated to pass out. Whether or not they cared about me specifically I’ll never know, but passing out literature is another task on the Jehovah’s Witness salvation checklist.

Tragically, my door and every other door they knock on to earn their salvation is the wrong one. We know that salvation comes by grace through belief in Jesus Christ.

“That 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” - Romans 10:8-9

One of my favorite verses comes to mind. I feel that it’s fitting here. Jesus said:

“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved” - John 10:9

Please join me in praying for these three individuals and all the others who have been led astray, that they would hear the Lord’s call and knock on his door. Let us pray they will find the freedom of God’s grace.

I encourage you to learn from my mistakes and engage them kindly and without restraint. With God’s help, let us be ready at any moment to share the truth of the Gospel. I also pray that we would have the same zeal to witness to our neighbors but instead of witnessing out of obligation, we would instead witness out of love.

Maybe those three will knock on my door again. I hope so. This time I’ll invite them in, ready or not, and tell them about the true Door.