review: Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs

In exchange for an unbiased review, the publisher has provided me with an e-copy of “Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs” (Multnomah Books, 2012) by Bruce Wilkinson.

Dr Wilkinson asks us to look at where we are on our spiritual journey, where we are in our relationships with God, our spouse, our children, and most importantly to ask ourselves if we are where we want to be. You probably already realize that most people are looking for something more than what they have, or this book wouldn’t have needed to be written. In this book, Wilkinson lays out several principles that help us get to the next step. He uses ‘Three Chairs’ as a metaphor for three types of “spiritual status before God”. The statuses range from 1) no personal; relationship, to 2) nominal Christianity, to 3) a full acceptance of Jesus as Savior AND Lord. The goal of this book is to help us get to the point of full acceptance, and using Biblical examples, the author lays out a plan.

Like several other books by this author that I’ve read, I found “Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs” to be a fairly easy read. The principles that he lays out are biblical, practical, and simple. You don’t need to be a theologian to understand what he is saying. Many books in the popular press claim to have the answers but the reader has to spend so much energy trying to figure out how any of it applies to his life, that he has nothing left when it comes to putting things into practice. IN this book Wilkinson doesn’t try to cover every possibility, rather he limits himself to how to breakthrough to that next level in the context of God, spouse and children. My hunch is that other areas of our lives will be affected to.

I have noticed a tendency for people in general to give up when things get tough. Wilkinson’s analogy of the second chair – the nominal Christian- probably fits most of these people. The Apostle Paul never writes to the churches that they should quit in the middle of the race: he encourages them to fight the good fight, to keep the faith, to finish the race, and to go into training and run as if you want to win. The people that are willing to do all of that are probably in the first chair, fully accepting of Jesus’ Lordship.  And what do we do with the third chair people? We remember that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

We’re all looking for something, and this book may have the ideas, the suggestions, the steps to take that will help us to find it. Great resource for an Adult Sunday School class, small group study or perhaps as part of a class on evangelism.  4.5/5