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My new book Supernatural Power for Everyday People: Experiencing God’s Extraordinary Spirit in Your Ordinary Life released just a few weeks ago. Here are some quotable highlights:

1. When we relegate our intentionality with God to a minute fraction of our time, it’s no wonder we feel distant from him during the times we happen to be thinking about him and lack power during all the other times. Whatever we focus most of our conscious time on will invariably dominate the way we think and feel. (8)

2. Too many of us spend our Christian lives waiting on something big to happen, completely oblivious to the fact that the biggest thing that could ever happen to us already did, and it’s more than enough. (14)

3. Craving more and more extravagant evidences of the Spirit is an easy way to demonstrate our lack of satisfaction with the gospel of Jesus. (15)

4. What is it that you and I need in both the storms of life and the ordinary boredom of life? Not good advice and not inspirational pick-me-ups. No, we need power. We need real power. (20)

5. Receiving the glory of Jesus changes us. This is why the gospel cannot be boring. It declares and imparts the glory of Christ. If you find the gospel less interesting than miraculous signs, it is only because you do not see how surpassingly wonderful the gospel is! The gospel cannot get boring any more than Jesus can get boring. (23)

6. Our modern self­orientation holds out the promise of needlessness but ironically only enhances our sense of need. This is a modern tragedy that has effects on nearly all aspects of our lives, overflowing into every compartment of ourselves. (39)

7. The worst thing that can happen to you is to get everything you want and be extremely comfortable for a long time yet be relationally disconnected from God. Separation from God is tragic, and it is tragic how little people feel that separation. (48)

8. This is how the Christian life is designed to work: from beginning to end, the Holy Spirit envelops us in the loving will of God, seeding promise after promise in us and sending power after power through us by his breathed­out, infallible Word. In fact, we cannot even live apart from the Word of God. (52)

9. The Spirit is speaking to us through his Word when we go to listen, and the Spirit is helping us pray when we go to speak to God. Your time in the Bible is the primary means by which the Holy Spirit empowers you to live your life. (71)

10. Hearing from God through the Bible is bigger than simply discovering some religious guidance or personal pick-­me-­ups for the week. It involves hearing the secret workings of heaven set loose in the everyday stuff of earth. (93)

11. Just as we are saved because of the Father’s commission, the Son’s atonement, and the Spirit’s regeneration, we continue to partake in the very nature of God because of the Father’s enduring love, the Son’s eternal righteousness, and the Spirit’s enlightening power. (95)

12. Contentment trusts God to be God. Discontentment, on the other hand, reveals our fear of everything but God—­fears of lack of safety, of financial insolvency, of what others might think of us, even of “spiritual immaturity.” (101)

13. We don’t find our strength in the stuff of the world; we find it in the work of the Spirit. But to be filled with the Spirit and learn this supernatural contentment, we must often be emptied by the Spirit of all else that might satisfy. (103)

14. You will find it easier to fast joyfully if you are feasting on the revelation of his Word. Feasting on the Scriptures and Christ himself prepares us to joyfully fast from the promises of fulfillment made by our consumer culture. (113)

15. The Devil is more afraid of the desperate believer on his face crying out of hunger for the living God than he is of anybody up on his feet rebuking him with random spiritual aphorisms. (118)

16. The church is where God’s Spirit is doing the grand rebuilding of humanity and human relationships. To consider the church optional is to miss out on the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s super-naturalizing of mankind! (147)

17. This is perhaps the chief way the Holy Spirit comforts us in our afflictions. He reminds us of what Christ has done for us. And this is not because the Spirit is at a loss as to how to encourage us. He’s not like our well-­meaning friends who like to spout cheap inspirational clichés and lame pick-­me­-ups, mainly out of their own discomfort at our pain. He knows the biggest help we could ever get is from the power of the gospel. (156)

18. Nothing the Spirit gives us or does for us is meant to culminate in our own glory. Even when he is comforting us, strengthening us, guiding us, and enlightening us, he is doing so that we might better magnify Christ. (169)

19. All gifts granted by the Spirit are given so that Christ Jesus will receive glory. We are not given any gift, whether teaching or tongues, works of service or words of knowledge ­to glorify ourselves. The Spiritual gifts aren’t keys to becoming super Christians. They are distributed mainly that we might contribute to the magnification of Jesus. (182)

20. The Spirit doesn’t just awaken our souls to desire Jesus, he takes up residence in our souls to satisfy us with the goodness of Jesus we now desire. From his place inside the temple of our bodies, the Spirit seeds good fruit, shapes godly thoughts, and empowers holy living. (189)

You can buy Supernatural Power for Everyday People via Amazon.com or wherever Christian books are sold.

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