Unlimited: Experiencing the Fullness of God's Power in Your Life

By Benny Tate

Why limit the only power that’s capable of doing far and above all that we could ever think or imagine?

After reading this book, you will have the tools you need to navigate life with the Holy Spirit in the way that God always intended for you to have.

In 2016, when Benny Tate decided to preach a sermon series on the Holy Spirit, He believed the Holy Spirit would come and bring great change. But He didn’t expect Him to change everything in his life as well and in the lives of his church staff and congregation!

In Unlimited, Tate helps readers discover a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit and realize His importance in their daily lives. Focusing on our need of the Holy Spirit, as well as His presence, power, and role in equipping us to fulfill our purpose, this book will help readers grow and better relate to the third person of the Trinity.

Providing real-life, practical applications and examples, Tate shows readers that when they allow the Holy Spirit to fill and direct their lives, everything will change: relationships will be healed, self-esteem will be lifted, purpose will be revealed, direction will become clear, hope will overflow, peace will reign in their hearts, and God’s goodness and faithfulness in their lives will be undeniable!

Being filled daily by the Holy Spirit is the only satisfying source in life. The hardships and disappointments will drain us, but the Holy Spirit’s power is available to us every day because His power and presence are unlimited!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charisma House
• Release date: Nov 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781636412689

Book preview

PART I

YOUR UNLIMITED NEED

Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts.

—EPHESIANS 5:18–19, NLT

CHAPTER 1

THE RIGHT SOURCE

I HAVE ALWAYS HATED going to the doctor. Ever since I can remember, I’ve avoided the doctor’s office as much as possible. Now it just so happens that my doctor is a faithful member of the church I pastor; therefore, I can’t avoid him for more than seven days at a time!

Prioritizing my health hasn’t always been as high on my to-do list as it has been since I turned fifty years old. I’ve traveled all over the country preaching for over forty years, which means fast food, convenience-store snacks, sodas, and limited sleep were all a solid part of my daily routine for many years. I remember my doctor telling me during a checkup that if I didn’t make some changes to my lifestyle, I wouldn’t be around for many years to come. I needed to eat better, drink more water, and start exercising.

I’m proud to say I have faithfully implemented one of the three needed changes! I head to the gym at 4:30 every morning, seven days a week, to run six miles on the treadmill. If I’m traveling, the first thing I ask the hotel concierge for is directions to and information about their gym. Even on Sunday mornings I take my sermon to the gym to look over my notes while running. Some people say that if you stick with running long enough, you begin to enjoy it so much that it becomes a lifestyle. I have a Greek word for that: hogwash. I don’t enjoy running today any more than I did when I first started many years ago. Running is a necessary evil because I eat too much junk food and drink way too many Diet Mountain Dews.

My doctor and my wife, Barbara, try their hardest to get me to drink more water, but I absolutely hate it! My precious wife keeps bottled water stocked in our refrigerator at all times. But every morning, I reach right past it to grab a Diet Mountain Dew before heading to the gym.

I have been encouraged to drink at least one water for every soda I drink daily, but I’m still working on that goal. When I’ve tried to cut back on drinking sodas during the day, I’ve found myself not drinking anything at all, which can quickly lead to dehydration.

While I’m still a work in progress with making healthier choices, I do know how dangerous it can be to become dehydrated. I have learned through trial and error that staying properly hydrated is just as important as exercising daily.

According to the Mayo Clinic, Dehydration occurs when you use or lose more fluid than you take in, and your body doesn’t have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions.¹ Common symptoms of dehydration include a dry mouth and tongue, weakness, a loss of appetite, and confusion. Allowing yourself to become dehydrated can be extremely dangerous to your physical, mental, and even emotional health.

Physical dehydration can be life-threatening, and if a person doesn’t make the right choices to rehydrate and heal their body, death could become a real possibility. A person who begins experiencing signs of physical dehydration should be quick to seek medical attention to avoid long-term damage to the body. However, what if a person isn’t dehydrated physically but spiritually?

SPIRITUALLY DEHYDRATED

I know what you’re thinking: Is that even a real thing? Yes, it is! While physical dehydration means a person’s body experiences a loss of water either through illness or physical activity, spiritual dehydration means a person is not being filled with living water that can only be provided through a relationship with Jesus Christ. D. L. Moody was known for praying to God to fill him with the Holy Spirit. Once he was asked why he prayed to be filled so much, and he answered, Because I leak. If a person is not praying for a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit, they will become spiritually dehydrated.

Some people are spiritually dehydrated because they have never asked Jesus into their hearts; therefore, they have never been filled with the Holy Spirit. But don’t think for a second that the only people who are spiritually dehydrated are nonbelievers, because there are Christians across the globe who are functioning in a constant state of dehydration and are attending churches that are bone-dry.

After all, Paul wrote to the saints of Ephesus, instructing them, Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18, NLT). Apparently even the church in Ephesus needed to be reminded of the importance of being continually filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you compare the two conditions, spiritual dehydration has many of the same symptoms as physical dehydration. Dry mouth and tongue occur because people don’t pray as they should or share the gospel with others as they are called to do. They experience weakness and give in to temptations and thought patterns that are detrimental to their overall spiritual health.

A loss of appetite occurs when people don’t seek truth and wisdom from God’s Word. Confusion eventually takes over because they have become so much like the world that they cannot differentiate between truth and lies.

While both spiritual and physical dehydration can be extremely dangerous, spiritual dehydration is worse because the possibility of physical death would be a loss of what is only temporary, while spiritual death results in an eternal loss. Sadly, there are people all over the world consuming half of their body weight (number of pounds) in ounces of water daily but continually neglecting to be filled spiritually with living water.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE SOLUTION

The Bible teaches that we have a flesh problem: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (Rom. 8:5–6).

The complication, however, is that the long-term, life-altering, transformative power of the Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood solution to our flesh problem. Many people tend to disregard what they don’t understand, and the Holy Spirit has certainly been disregarded by Christians and nonbelievers alike.

You see, there are three groups of people in this world: those who don’t know the Lord and have not received the Holy Spirit, those who know the Lord and have received the Holy Spirit but have never completely surrendered to His lordship, and those who know the Lord and are controlled by the Holy Spirit.

When considering Christianity, most people just think in terms of saved or not saved, Christian or non-Christian. Just because a person is saved and has received the Holy Spirit within them doesn’t mean they have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and surrender to His powerful authority. Many Christians are living on fire insurance—they accepted Jesus to avoid going to hell. They try to make better decisions and live in a way that is pleasing to God, but they do it all in their own strength and efforts. A lot of Christians use the Bible as they would a car manual, only pulling it out to read certain sections when there is a problem. But God didn’t give us the Bible simply to increase our knowledge; He gave us the Bible to change our lives.

God didn’t give us the Bible simply to increase our knowledge; He gave us the Bible to change our lives.

Don’t be fooled: some part of every person who accepts Jesus does so to avoid hell. Our hearts are convicted of sin, and we want forgiveness so we can spend eternity in heaven. There is nothing wrong with this motivation for salvation—it’s where we all begin our walk with Christ. But there comes a time when we must transition beyond being saved from hell to being saved and surrendered.

I remember desperately wanting to get saved because I was miserable from the constant thought of going to hell. As a sixteen-year-old kid, I would come home late from partying and climb into my bed, only to lie awake for hours. I knew I was living in sin, and my mother’s prayers for me each night only made me feel that much worse. The Holy Spirit was dealing with my heart right up until I couldn’t take it any longer, and I finally asked my mother to call the preacher. I accepted Jesus because I needed Him to get me out of hell, but it wasn’t until later that I realized how much I needed Him to get hell out of me.

My salvation experience was real, and I meant every word of the prayer I prayed, but I didn’t wake up the next morning free of all my bad habits and sinful behaviors. It took God one day to get the Israelites out of Egypt, but it took Him forty years to get Egypt out of them. And I had a lot of Egypt still in me. Transformation doesn’t happen overnight; it is a continual process. We will all learn, grow, and develop in our walk with Christ in unique ways throughout every stage of our lives. The key is surrendering to the power of the Holy Spirit.

The problem: everyone has a tough time surrendering to what they don’t understand. People who are not saved as well as Christians with no relationship with the Holy Spirit often find themselves having one or more of the following attitudes that contribute to the common disregard of the Holy Spirit: ignorance, indifference, or indulgence.

I certainly do not mean to offend anyone by using the word ignorance, but it simply means to be unlearned or uninformed. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, a large percentage of people are not knowledgeable and haven’t been taught the truth about who the Holy Spirit is. Those who have never asked Jesus into their hearts have no true understanding of the Holy Spirit at all. To most people, Christianity is about God and Jesus: God created the world, and Jesus died on the cross. The Holy Spirit often gets talked about only as a symbol for God instead of a separate person who dwells within every Christian. First Corinthians 3:16 teaches that Christians are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within those who have accepted Christ. This concept can be quite confusing for both Christians and nonbelievers who have not been taught biblical truth concerning the Holy Spirit and His continual presence in their everyday lives.

The attitude of ignorance has kept many people from realizing the daily access they have to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. If you currently have or have had an attitude of ignorance, it’s not a reason to beat yourself up or to feel shame. I lived many years as a Christian and preached many years as a pastor with an attitude of ignorance. I didn’t know the truth about the Holy Spirit, so my ignorance and fear kept me from learning for myself and sharing with others.

Learning from your mistakes is good, but learning from the mistakes of others is better. I hope you will learn from my mistakes and seek to gain a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit through learning biblical facts provided throughout this book to help you move beyond an attitude of ignorance to discover the truth about the Holy Spirit as a person who has a mind, will, and emotions.

The second attitude concerning the Holy Spirit is one of indifference, which means a person has a lack of concern or sees something as unimportant. A large majority of people—Christians and nonbelievers alike—see the Holy Spirit as weird, strange, or mystical. He is talked about and described as a force or energy instead of being understood as a person, which causes people to see no need for understanding or even acknowledging the Holy Spirit as part of their faith.

According to the American Worldview Inventory 2021 survey conducted annually by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, of the 69 percent of Americans who call themselves Christians, a majority (58 percent) contend that the Holy Spirit is not a real, living being but is merely a symbol of God’s power, presence, or purity.² There is a common feeling of indifference toward the Holy Spirit because He is more a symbol or an accessory to their faith than a vital person.

The Holy Spirit as merely a symbol of God’s power and presence can be compared to the extremely popular ideas in today’s culture that people can be led by their feelings of energy, vibes, and chemistry. Rather than continually being filled and led with the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians and nonbelievers alike are relying on their emotions to drive their thoughts, moods, actions, and decisions.

Relying on the flesh and working out of one’s own strength is always a recipe for failure. It will always leave a person empty and dissatisfied because we were created with only one solution to our flesh problem. Saint Augustine said, Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.³ We must rely on a power greater than ourselves to experience peace in this life. The Holy Spirit is vital to the Christian life and should not be dismissed with an attitude of indifference.

The third attitude many people have about the Holy Spirit is one of indulgence. This attitude is developed when people have an experience that is overly excessive and not based on biblical truths concerning the Holy Spirit. Today’s technology makes it so much easier for this attitude to spread because people can post and share anything on the internet that fuels misconceptions and false beliefs. It is common for someone to say something like, I saw this crazy video online and I don’t want to be a part of anything like that. While the internet can be a great tool for sharing the gospel, it is also used often to encourage sin and spread false teaching.

I know firsthand what it means to have an attitude of indulgence. Part of the reason that I avoided learning or preaching about the Holy Spirit for so long is that I had several bad experiences early in my salvation. Even before I got saved, my mother was in a relationship with a man who wasn’t at all godly but talked about the Bible often. He would say things such as, The Holy Spirit will knock you down. I can remember being extremely uncomfortable with the idea of the Holy Spirit working in my life because I didn’t want Him to knock me down. I was afraid of what that meant or how that would feel.

Even after I got saved and began preaching, I remember people telling me about other church services where many in the congregation were out of control in the Spirit. They would detail all these extreme happenings and say, We’re led by the Holy Spirit. To be honest, I was afraid. I didn’t want to preach about the Holy Spirit because I feared what would happen to people and I had no idea what to expect. Because of my own fear, I stuck to the parts of the Bible I was comfortable with teaching and preaching.

Once I began deep Bible study and learned precise scripture concerning the Holy Spirit, I understood that the Holy Spirit will never violate or contradict the teaching of the Bible. I have never found any biblical basis for being out of control in the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, there are churches all over the world scaring people to death because they’re claiming to be led by the Holy Spirit when in reality He’s not within a million miles of what they are doing. Many churches today are either cemeteries (dead) or insane asylums (have crazy practices with no scriptural basis), which leaves people spiritually dehydrated and wanting nothing to do with the local church.

The Holy Spirit will never violate or contradict the teaching of the Bible.

These indulgent experiences make Christians and nonbelievers hesitant to seek a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Maybe you can relate to having similar experiences and you have found yourself avoiding anything Spirit related. I encourage you to rely on scripture alone to create the foundation upon which you can build a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Don’t let the actions and beliefs of others keep you from experiencing the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit working in your life. Without a fresh filling of His power daily, you will continue to feel drained and depleted. Knowing Him and surrendering to Him allows you to fully live by a power greater than yourself.

LIVING WATER

When a person is physically dehydrated, he needs to supply the body with water to replenish what has been depleted. The same is true for those who are spiritually dehydrated, but not just any kind of water will provide the necessary hydration. Living water is the only solution for spiritual dehydration.

In John 4, Jesus explains the meaning of living water while resting at a well in Samaria on his way to Galilee. As a woman approached to draw water from the well, Jesus asked that she give him a drink. She was shocked because Jews did not associate with Samaritans at that time.

He goes on to tell her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13–14). This woman certainly had an attitude of ignorance because she did not understand what in the world Jesus could mean by living water.

See, the woman was from Samaria, and she knew there were no rivers of living water. The people were keenly aware of their water sources and the quality of water they had access to in the land. No doubt she was rather confused as to how Jesus could provide her with better water than she could draw from Jacob’s well. But the living water Jesus refers to in this scripture is the Holy Spirit—He is the source that will never run dry for all eternity.

Jesus continues to explain in verses 23–24, But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Up until this point, people worshipped God alone, but Jesus was letting her know that things were about to change greatly. True worshippers would soon worship God the Father, along with His Son, Jesus (in truth), and the Holy Spirit (in spirit).

The same is true for Christians today: we must worship God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. In his book Exploring Prayer With Jack Hyles, Hyles recalls