A devotional study by bestselling novelist and devotional writer Michael Phillips, identifying 120 commands of Jesus from the gospels.
Jesus often introduces the subject of obedience with the tiny but eternally significant word "If". He recognizes that there are always two paths—obedience and disobedience. He commands obedience. But many will not obey. This obedience is a natural outgrowth of love:
-If you love me you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)-He who has my commands and keeps them, he it is who loves me. (John 14:21)-If a man loves me, he will keep my word. (John 14:23)-You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Jesus is well aware of the games people play with spiritual things. He wants none to mistake what it means to be his followe. Many will claim to love him. Many will pretend to love him. Many will talk about loving him. Many will analyze what it means to love him. However, a Christian is distinguished and defined by one—and only one—thing: Obedience.
Obedience to the Commands of Jesus is a daily, moment-by-moment choice. We make it over and over. We are continually making it. It is a progressive and ongoing choice that defines what it means to love Jesus and be his follower.
A book for young people by Michael and Judy Phillips, veterans of a 46-year marriage (and counting!), in preparing for a marriage that will last a lifetime.
The state of marriage is alarming—not only in society at large but among Christians as well. Young people need a whole new strategy for finding lifetime mates. Drawing upon their pioneering work in the field of home schooling as well as their work with young people, Michael and Judy Phillips present bold, surprising, sometimes even controversial alternatives to dating as the means for choosing spouses.
Best Friends for Life develops revolutionary ideas about parental involvement, about dating as it is usually understood, and about the pressures young people face to make lifetime decisions prematurely. Families who want to choose God’s best will find here a strong prescription for wise, sensible, and lasting Christian marriages.
I am writing this as an open letter to a few select individuals who are dear to my life and heart. I hope and pray that anyone else into whose hands it chances to come may find it interesting, and may in some way benefit from it.
All my life I have been what is loosely called "evangelical" in my general outlook and spiritual perspective. As such, in order to breathe freely in my spirit and keep my brain and heart thriving and growing, I have found it necessary to re-think many of the doctrinal particulars of belief in which I was raised.
What follows is not an autobiography by any means of that journey. It is rather an attempt to place my sojourn into a wider context, and to explain this "necessity" I have felt to explore Christian thought beyond the boundaries of the teaching I received at various stages of my life.
