Living in the Realm of the SpiritBOOK REVIEW
By Stanley O. Williford
Director of Publications
In his early ministry, Apostle Frederick K.C. Price found himself constantly frustrated by the lack of the miraculous – the signs and wonders – he saw in the Book of Acts.
The fact that these signs and wonders were missing from other ministries didn’t console him in the least since he didn’t march to the beat of other drummers.
“I began to cry out to God,” he writes in Living in the Realm of the Spirit. “I knew that He had called me, but I was ready to give up the ministry because there was no power in me. I was dissatisfied. My own life was a wreck, an absolute shambles.”
In the book, I Believe in Miracles by Kathryn Kuhlman, he saw that those same signs and wonders mentioned in the Book of Acts were still possible today.
After a time of desperate longing and searching, in 1970 he received the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Now he had power, but he didn’t know how to harness it.
He learned quickly.
Despite his yearning for the signs and wonders, he learned that they are “not primarily for Christians.” They have a twofold purpose:
- To empower the ministry gifts – the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers;
- To advertise God’s power and reality to the world (to sinners, those who don’t know Christ).
Once saved by having confessed Jesus as Savior and Lord, Christians are not expected to walk [live] by signs and wonders, but by faith, he explains.
“I expect the gifts of the Spirit to operate in my ministry, and they do. But for me, personally, to walk with God, I have to walk by faith. And so do you.”
About the time he learned that the events in Book of Acts could still be operational today, he learned about divine healing. But beyond that, he discovered that divine healing wasn’t God’s best. Divine health is.
Divine health means one can avoid sickness altogether rather than be healed from it.
As in virtually all his teachings, Apostle Price always migrates to the subject of faith, and that is true in Living in the Realm of the Spirit. Long ago he found that it takes faith to please God, just as Hebrews 11:6 says.
Further, he discovered that faith has a time element, and in Chapter 2 he offers an elegant discourse on that element. That time element is now. God only lives in the now.
“If it is not present tense, it is not faith!” he emphasizes. Faith is always now.
Not only is the time element captured in such words as now and is in Hebrews 11:1, which says:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith, he realized, has substance. That substance is the evidence (or proof) of things that are not immediately seen.
“When we walk by faith, we leave the realm of the senses . . . ,” he writes.
He continues on faith in Chapter 3, where he points out, among other things, that faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
“If faith comes, then faith must come from somewhere,” he writes. “And faith must not have been there before it came, or it would not have had to come there. So you start out without faith, and then it comes.”
So the hearing of the Word and faith go hand in hand, he concludes. But the revelation doesn’t end there. It goes higher:
“Now it does not say that faith comes by having heard. This is where so many people miss it. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing is present tense. It goes on forever and never stops. You need to keep hearing and hearing and hearing. It is like eating. You have eaten in the past, but you have to keep on eating every day if you want to stay strong and healthy. The food you ate last week will not keep you functioning this week.”
Nuff said.
https://store.crenshawchristiancenter.net/p-2278-living-in-the-realm-of-the-spirit.aspx
