A Sacrifice of Obedience was written through the years 2002 and 2003 as an intended sequel to Make Me Like Jesus. It was never published.

Fifteen years have now passed. As I look at the world around me, it seems less likely than ever that Christians in very large numbers will be drawn to a message about sacrifice or obedience. And I am no different. I resist both imperatives just like everyone else. I had hoped by this time in my life to be a little further along.

But obedience remains the bull’s eye of the Christian faith, and the very personal bull’s eye of my own life. Thus, the time at last seems right to revisit this manuscript and share it with whatever fellow pilgrims there may be on that isolated and occasionally lonely path.

You who read these words may be few. Even in Christendom, where the image of the cross looms large in the imaginations and theologies of its many churches and their members, the actual cross-life of sacrifice and obedience is not so well known.

Yet to such a life we are called. It is the only life to which we are called.

Let us, then, courageously explore together a few high points along the Lord’s earthly Calvary road to see what they have to reveal about that life.

Most of us want to know God more intimately. But are we willing to boldly face the challenge of what that means? Are we truly willing to pray a prayer that may be dangerous in ways we cannot anticipate? Are we willing to ask God to make us like Jesus?
Author Michael Phillips shares from his own life how he has learned to take up that challenge. Then he examines key decisions in the life of Jesus Christ that illuminate what it means for each of us to be conformed to the image of God’s son—to love like Jesus, think like him, pray like him, and trust the Father like him.
If status-quo spirituality is for you, do not read this book. It is a dangerous book—dangerous to the flesh—for the journey toward Christlikeness may be painful and costly. Yet that journey leads to the ultimate purpose God intends for all his children: conformity to the image of his son.