Repentance prepares the way for the Lord

I have often wondered how to explain the fullness of the gospel to a new or not yet believer because it is sometimes hard to properly explain or understand the union of the following three truths:

1. We are saved ONLY by grace through faith in Jesus

2. Repentance (turning from sin and idols) is a necessary and integral part of coming to Christ for the first time (salvation) and walking with Jesus for a lifetime.

3. It is not legalistic or preaching "works salvation" to say that repentance and grace go together.

I feel like my spirit knows how to understand these truths together without becoming legalistic or without preaching works salvation, but it has often felt hard for me to explain it to others without feeling like I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth. Especially when sharing the gospel with a seeking person, I love to share about the uniqueness of righteousness and merit with God being rooted in grace, not works. This sets Christianity and the person of Jesus apart from every other religion in the world! 

Top 14 most influential sermons to me this past year in no particular order

This was really hard for me to narrow down bc I have heard so many awesome sermons in the past year:) But here they are:

When bad things happen

A very common question that I hear from people of all stages of faith, life, and age is: "why does God allow evil and suffering to happen?" Someone asked me this question a few days ago and I honestly just totally blanked on most of the answers that I have ever heard in response to that question. But what did pop into my mind was something along the lines of the following thoughts:

We can't really know why, but what can we know about God in the midst of a broken world based on the authority of the Word of God and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?

From Indwelling Life, To True Worship, To Christ Centered Mission

Three things I desire for followers of Christ found in John 4

3 key verses in John 4:

1. (v13-14): Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
2. (v. 23-24): Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
3. (v. 31-34): Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about...My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

So a brief summary of a progression of faith that can be gathered from these verses is: from being filled with the wellspring of life to worshiping God in spirit and truth to doing the will of the Father.