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By My Spirit
After fleeing China's Boxer Rebellion of 1901, Jonathan Goforth felt a divine burden to return. This book tells how God used a series of extraordinary events to take him there, then used him to bring revival.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
138 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1929
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 17, 2022
On one hand I feel bad rating this book so low, but on the other I almost want to caution against buying it.
The good…
The encouragement of God moving in His Church purifying growing believers by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. He desperately wants us to see the power of God to change individuals, schools, and churches. He wants us to seek God’s power in our own lives. So, he focuses on the immediate dramatic changes that happened when believers individually surrender to God’s convicting, confess their sins, and seek his face. That leads to his sharing the wonderful testimonies of numerous people who surrendered to the Lord.
The bad…
Extraordinarily choppy. It moves from one location and group of people. That means that there are lots brief, paragraph or two, snippets about a vast number of people and places.
Naturally, the focus is on the dramatic and the shocking in the confessions. Praise the Lord for every soul saved and life changed. I can only remember one story of steady faithfulness leading to revival. The others seem to all have been included for their shock value.
There is no Gospel. It is a book that is written to Christians, but what is the point of all the revivals in the world if they are not founded on the Gospel. Really there is no scriptural teaching of any kind. It is all an example, experiential based type of motivation.
It gets repetitive. I’m not saying that the work of God in each place was repetitive. It’s just that whether in an attempt to condense the book, or of a lack of knowledge finer details, it is so abbreviated that each story sounds almost identical to the last brief story.
The book opens with an introduction by Rosalind Goforth explaining that it was written in just a few days while Johnathan Goforth was excruciating agony from a bad tooth. That may explain the choppiness and the lack of deeper teaching.
If you are interested in Goforth or a deeper look at his works, this would be good. It’s just not a very easy read.
The good…
The encouragement of God moving in His Church purifying growing believers by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. He desperately wants us to see the power of God to change individuals, schools, and churches. He wants us to seek God’s power in our own lives. So, he focuses on the immediate dramatic changes that happened when believers individually surrender to God’s convicting, confess their sins, and seek his face. That leads to his sharing the wonderful testimonies of numerous people who surrendered to the Lord.
The bad…
Extraordinarily choppy. It moves from one location and group of people. That means that there are lots brief, paragraph or two, snippets about a vast number of people and places.
Naturally, the focus is on the dramatic and the shocking in the confessions. Praise the Lord for every soul saved and life changed. I can only remember one story of steady faithfulness leading to revival. The others seem to all have been included for their shock value.
There is no Gospel. It is a book that is written to Christians, but what is the point of all the revivals in the world if they are not founded on the Gospel. Really there is no scriptural teaching of any kind. It is all an example, experiential based type of motivation.
It gets repetitive. I’m not saying that the work of God in each place was repetitive. It’s just that whether in an attempt to condense the book, or of a lack of knowledge finer details, it is so abbreviated that each story sounds almost identical to the last brief story.
The book opens with an introduction by Rosalind Goforth explaining that it was written in just a few days while Johnathan Goforth was excruciating agony from a bad tooth. That may explain the choppiness and the lack of deeper teaching.
If you are interested in Goforth or a deeper look at his works, this would be good. It’s just not a very easy read.
February 9, 2021
Powerful Encouragement to Pray
Reading these testimonies of God's Spirit being poured out on the missionaries and the Chinese among whom they labored, because of the faithful praying and confession of sin, is what the Church desperately needs to hear today. I believe we would see revivals among God's people, multitudes of the lost coming to Christ, and holiness and purity in the lives of the saved. Prayer and repentance/confession of sin are far more powerful than new programs and endless discussions of how to reach the unsaved. God will work powerfully among the lost if the saved will first allow Him to work powerfully in their lives.
Reading these testimonies of God's Spirit being poured out on the missionaries and the Chinese among whom they labored, because of the faithful praying and confession of sin, is what the Church desperately needs to hear today. I believe we would see revivals among God's people, multitudes of the lost coming to Christ, and holiness and purity in the lives of the saved. Prayer and repentance/confession of sin are far more powerful than new programs and endless discussions of how to reach the unsaved. God will work powerfully among the lost if the saved will first allow Him to work powerfully in their lives.
August 3, 2017
Books such as this are a treasure. There is so much joy and purpose we do not have because of what we do not surrender to the Lord, and so much that is not done to save our brothers and sisters in rebellion for the same reason. These stories of revival meetings all across China are a challenge to sell all, deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Christ daily. It is a call to the life that can say as the Apostle Paul did, "I am innocent of the blood of all men."
March 25, 2024
After reading his biography, written by his wife, it was interesting to read this little book that details what happened during the revivals across China in the 1900s. It is a "then we went here, then we did this" kind of book, but I really appreciated the 'realness' of the stories: Real people, real struggles, real surrender, real victory. I also was curious to have his explanation of how revival worked, and his very deep trust that the Holy Spirit would work if lives were surrendered to Him.
January 23, 2016
Very early on in the book he commended Charles Finney's methods for revival and the rest of the book demonstrated his adherence to it. I found the following quote to be a startling illustration of much of the theological underpinning of these accounts of revival. " we wish to state most emphatically as our conviction that God's revival may be had when we will and where we will." (page 131)
January 26, 2014
Having taught history for a couple of decades, I was always amazed that most textbooks just ignored spiritual movements within a country. This little book describes a Christian revival in China in the early part of the 20th century, shortly after the Boxer Rebellion. It's well worth the read.
May 10, 2015
An excellent and even fast-paced account from Jonathan Goforth on the revival that happened through his ministry in China! Its a challenging read, that may cause you to examine your own heart and relationship with God.
June 15, 2015
A gem! Confession really played a role in the revivals he was part of in China and Korea.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews