This book isn’t about tapping into the Spirit’s power as if he is some passive power source. It’s about the powerful Spirit, given to us by a powerful Christ, doing real work in our hearts. This is more a book about looking at what the Spirit is doing instead of banging us over the head with what the Spirit could be doing. As such it is wildly encouraging.

Let’s imagine a guy who is a shared friend of many of your friends. He’s a great dude. Much of his life is about helping others. But he’s also not afraid to call you out if you’re doing something stupid. And he cannot shut up about Jesus. He’s constantly pointing to Christ with everything he does. But here is the thing about your friend. He’s a little bit of a mystery. There is much debate among your friends about where he works and what he actually does for a living. Also there are some gifts that he’s given amongst your friends that none of you are really sure if they came from him or not. Truth be told he’s a bit nebulous. Part of this is because anytime you really focus attention on him or try to get to know him he just points it all back to Jesus.

So if you were to write a book about this friend what would be the topic? Would you be honoring this friend if you spent all your time trying to unravel all the mysterious stuff? Would it be helpful to expend all your energy attempting to really explain all the gifts that he has given? Or to spill hundreds of pages of ink on unraveling the mystery of what he does for a career? That wouldn’t be honoring him, would it? Instead you’d most honor your friend by talking about all the amazing stuff he has done in your life. But the real key to honoring your friend would be to talk about his best friend; namely, Jesus.

This is why I absolutely love Jared Wilson’s latest book on the Spirit: Supernatural Power For Everyday People. Jared doesn’t get lost in the weeds of writing about tertiary debates concerning the work of the Spirit. Instead he spends his time showing us how the Spirit actually transforms us daily. This book isn’t about tapping into the Spirit’s power as if he is some passive power source. It’s about the powerful Spirit, given to us by a powerful Christ, doing real work in our hearts. This is more a book about looking at what the Spirit is doing instead of banging us over the head with what the Spirit could be doing. As such it is wildly encouraging.

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