Book Review: Forgotten God, Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit

So I just finished Forgotten God and it was awesome!!! Everything I have read by Francis Chan convicts me and excites me to have a more radical faith. He writes with such passion and he doesn't sugarcoat anything. And I love how he includes his own struggles and challenges. This book calls for a return to the Holy Spirit's power and leading in a believer's life. It gives a theology about the Spirit, describes a church filled with the Spirit, and discusses our need for the Spirit.

I feel like I play it safe in life. I'm not living a radical faith where I do what God wants me to do regardless of the cost, how I feel or what some people may think. I love this statement he made, "I don't want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn't be doing this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through....I deeply desire that the Spirit of God would do things that I know are not of me and that cannot be faked or accounted for by human reason." I definitely want to experience the power of the Spirit more fully in my life and follow His leading on a daily basis. I want to let go of all the fears and insecurities and what-ifs and just live with total dependence on God and not on myself.

I also want to experience the fruit of the Spirit which is the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Chan says, "Has anyone ever been amazed by your peace? Love? Joy? Have they envied your self-control?...Do you consistently respond with kindness no matter what you receive from others? It is when we are filled with true peace and hope that people notice there is something different about us." I want to live a joyous and peaceful life and that can only come from walking in the Spirit that's already dwelling inside of me.

This book was a wake-up call. I am pumped up and ready to follow the Spirit's leading in every aspect of my life! Great read. Check out his other best-selling book Crazy Love.