Is Godly Life Practical

“Is it really possible to live a godly life?” This book considers the most imposing query of many young Christians. Jesus Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, emphasized the necessity of a holy or nobler life than that of the sanctimonious people. He said, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter in to the kingdom of heaven.” Moreover, Jesus said, “Be ye perfect even as your father is perfect.” Any inquisitive person may wonder, “Is it possible to live a life of such perfection as God is demanding?” Youth and the young in Christ may wonder if such godly life, as necessitated by Christ, is a reality. Many people, though outwardly appearing to be still, may be struggling with contradiction inwardly. Some might have even come to the conclusion that godly life is humanly impossible. Most appallingly, some may even be thinking that all believers in Jesus Christ are hypocrites. This book demonstrates, through the important truths from the Holy Bible, that godly living is a reality, and it is possible even in these days to live a godly life.

The Practice of the Presence of God is a spiritual classic written by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. This small but impactful work is a compilation of letters and conversations attributed to Brother Lawrence, offering profound insights into cultivating a continuous awareness of the presence of God in everyday life.

This book is a study of the Christian life and the practice of Christians and the church from an Anglican perspective. It begins with an analysis and explication of the structure and process of the Christian life before God in the church and the world involving a five-fold rule of life and the relation of this to spiritual direction. This is followed by an analysis and critique of the current spirituality movement, which arose in the 1970s and which has come to dominate and mislead the churches. A sequel to the latter explains the origin of the spirituality movement in the current Romantic movement that arose in the 1960s and has influenced all aspects of our culture with ambiguous results. Next there is a critique of contemporary parish ministry as practiced in residential parishes that at best ministers only to the private lives of its members, followed by a fictional story of such a residential parish that suggests a new departure in parish ministry. Then there is a critique of preaching in the Episcopal Church that is generally considered to be poor, and a proposal of a way to overcome this. The concluding three chapters treat a fundamental problem in our approach to private prayer and a way to resolve this, a proposal for a way to overcome the current impasse in the Anglican Communion concerning homosexuality, and a meditation on the responsibility of Christians in public life.

The Gospels And Christian Life reads the four canonical Gospels as handbooks for religious formation through communal practices. The book focuses on the communities that produced each gospel, the dynamic energy each gospel displays for creating and sustaining community life, the different interpretations of the person of Jesus, and the different systems of organization and leadership each gospel promulgated. The authors carefully describe the social context of each Gospel and delineate the practices the texts prescribe. Each gospel has an imaginative portal, an introductory chapter introducing the necessary background for understanding the social, intellectual, and religious setting for each gospel. Their reading of each Gospel builds on these foundations to illustrate the nature and scope of the community's practices. Their work starts from the assumption that the communities did not look to the Gospels for biographical data on the life of Jesus to offer the reader a powerful reading of each Gospel community, its unique practices, and the way people were trained to become members of it. This book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate teachers and students, pastors, and the general audience eager for new ways to understand the New Testament.