"Before we deal with the question of how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, there are some matters which first have to be settled. As believers you have to get them out of the way, and right here is where the difficulty arises. I have been afraid that my listeners might have gotten the idea somewhere that I had a how-to-be-filled-with-the-Spirit-in-five-easy-lessons doctrine, which I could give you. If you can have any such vague ideas as that, I can only stand before you and say, “I am sorry”; because it isn’t true; I can’t give you such a course. There are some things, I say, that you have to get out of the way, settled."--A. W. Tozer
Genre: RELIGION / Christian Theology / PneumatologyThe sales rank for the print book is currently 41,000 in the US. The ebook sales rank is 15,800. Those numbers are steady and this has been my number one best selling ebook since it was published, and usually sells about 350 copies a month, sometimes up to 500. It is one of my top 3 best selling paperbacks and has sold almost 200 copies this month.
We all use the word “spirit” a great deal. Now I want to tell you what I do and do not mean by it. In the first place, we rule out all of the secondary uses of the word “spirit.” I do not mean courage, as when we say, “That’s the spirit!” I don’t mean temper or temperament or pluck. I mean nothing so nebulous as that. Spirit is a specific and identifiable substance. If not definable, it can at least be described. Spirit is as real as matter, but it is another mode of being than matter.
We are all materialists to some extent. We are born of material parents into a material world; we are wrapped in material clothes and fed on material milk and lie in a material bed, and sleep and walk and live and talk and grow up in a world of matter. Matter presses upon us obtrusively and takes over our thinking so completely that we cannot speak of spirit without using materialistic terms. God made man out of the dust of the ground, and man has been dust ever since, and we can’t quite shake it off.
Matter is one mode of being; spirit is another mode of being as authentic as matter.
Material things have certain characteristics. For instance, they have weight. Everything that is material weighs something; it yields to gravitational pull. Then, matter has dimensions; you can measure the thing if it is made of matter. It has shape. It has an outline of some sort, no matter whether it is a molecule or an atom or whatever it may be, on up to the stars that shine. Then, it is extended in space. So I say that weight, dimension, shape and extension are the things that belong to matter. That is one mode of being; that is one way of existing.
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Afrikaans
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Already translated.
Translated by Marieta McGrath
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Dutch
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Already translated.
Translated by Christian Smets
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Author review: I had a really good experience having this book translated by Christian. I hope we can continue working together in the future. |
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French
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Already translated.
Translated by Natalie Paige Jenkins
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Author review: Excellent translation. Great to work with. I hope to work with her again in the future. |
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Maria Francesca Rinaldi Morais
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Author review: Very high quality translator. Finished ahead of time. I would recommend Maria to anyone and would be very happy to work with her again sometime soon. |
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Emanuel Guedes Santos
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Author review: I have received a lot of negative reviews on the books this guy has translated for me. If it is possible I would like to terminate the contract and have a competent translator do the job for me. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Andrea Mazzocchi
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Author review: Awesome translation. Andrea is a joy to work with. Very professional. I hope we can work together again in the future. |
