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Rating: 
Summary: Flying Closer to the flame - Home Run!
Review: As usual, Chuck Swindoll hits it out of the park! This book gives us a view of God's Holy Spirit not often taught from the pulpit. He tells us that incredible power is available to the believer to accomplish much for the cause of Christ, but we usually don't trust God to do much more than the mundane in our lives. "Let's face it - many of us simly do not understand the Holy Spirit. We feel awkward relating to Him..." And, he goes on to teach us how to understand Him and how to comfortably relate to Him. This book is easy to use, taking little time out of the day, and listening to the audio tapes will really give you the complete picture.
Rating:
Summary: Flying Closer to the flame - Home Run!
Review: As usual, Chuck Swindoll hits it out of the park! This book gives us a view of God's Holy Spirit not often taught from the pulpit. He tells us that incredible power is available to the believer to accomplish much for the cause of Christ, but we usually don't trust God to do much more than the mundane in our lives. "Let's face it - many of us simly do not understand the Holy Spirit. We feel awkward relating to Him..." And, he goes on to teach us how to understand Him and how to comfortably relate to Him. This book is easy to use, taking little time out of the day, and listening to the audio tapes will really give you the complete picture.
Rating: 
Summary: A Roller Coaster Ride
Review: Charles Swindoll encourages the reader to get closer to the Holy Spirit yet seems more than cautiously skeptical of any claims of the Spirit's more dramatic manifestations. I found myself more than once starting to get excited about where he was going only to have him cut himself short to redundantly warn readers about getting "fanatical" or joining "cults". While I do agree that Christians should be duly cautious about dramatic experiences, claims, cults, and the plethora of charlatans who have paraded so called "gifts of the Spirit" on Television weighing everything they hear of and experience against the scriptures, I feel his cautions tended to overpower the many excellent points he made about how the Holy Spirit can empower, revitalize, and enable believers. I commend the fact that Mr. Swindoll was clearly trying to be conscientious by gearing his work to a general audience of believers at all points of the spectrum of belief. Still, the repetitive admonitions gave the impression that he felt most dramatic and/or physical "manifestations" were not to be believed and that most readers of this book were looking for a grand miracle to confirm their weak conviction, rather than a deeper relationship with this integral Person of the trinity. I feel the point that should have been more stringently stressed is how Christians themselves limit the Holy Spirit's influence and gifts because of feeble faith and a poor diet of God's word. When one is daily in the Bible and prays frequently and fervently seeking God's will in ALL they do, the influence and revitalizing qualities of the Holy Spirit are most poignantly experienced. This is not to imply that the book has no merit or that there is nothing to be gleaned from it. On the contrary, Mr. Swindoll infuses most of his many excellent points with a healthy smattering of pertinent scripture and tended to lean more on Biblical truths than his own understanding. This is the sort of attentive preaching and teaching we could use much more of.
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