Book Review: Hosting the Presence

Hello everyone! Today, I’ve got my review of my first read of 2025, Hosting the Presence, a Christian non-fiction, by Bill Johnson. This is also my first re-read of the year, as I originally read this back in 2022-2023 for a college class. For this review, seeing that it is a non-fiction, I’ll be only doing my personal review.

So without further ado, let’s get to it!

The Synopsis

 Let the Spirit live inside you! Are you hungry for an encounter with Jesus? Do you want to make an impact on the world? In this power-packed book, Bill Johnson discusses how you can be a person who hosts the Presence of God. Though all believers obviously have the Spirit of God within them, there is more that enables you to be so full that you overflow His Spirit into your world. Take a journey and meet many great prophets and kings from the Old Testament who were known as people of the Presence—people who, in Johnson’s words, “God wanted to be with.” In this succinct and powerful book, Johnson encourages you toward a pursuit of the Presence of God above all else. In this book, you will discover: 
  How to pay attention to the Holy Spirit and respond to Him.   How the Holy Spirit manifests Himself.   Biblical figures who were hungry for more of God’s Spirit and learned to host Him.   Stories of Presence-filled revivalists and personal encounters with the Presence! Bill Johnson writes: “We are enabled to partner with the Kingdom of Heaven and see it released here on earth! The Presence of God within us will bring reformation to the world around us—encountering a loving God!” Host more of Him today!

Personal Review

This book is deep, but it also explains things well. The author gives us examples, both from Scripture, Church history, and his own personal experiences, and backs everything up with Scripture, which is hugely important when talking about Biblical principles. But the main point he makes is how important it is, and how fulfilled we’ll be, when our life consists of focusing solely on Him and hosting His Presence.

Since this is the first read of 2025, I thought it would be fun to list off twenty-five quotes or my paraphrases of quotes from the book which really impacted me! So here we go!

1. God planted us in the earth with a purpose which we can’t accomplish without Him. Learning to host Him must become our focus so we can have the success He desires for us before Jesus returns.
2. God is a Person who longs for a partnership and fellowship with us.
3. God chose to defeat satan through those who worship Him, which is genius because satan’s desire for worship is what made him fall.
4. God never told Adam or Eve anything about spiritual warfare. Everything they needed to do and know came from fellowshipping with God. (This is not saying learning about spiritual warfare is not important, but that often Christians over-emphasis it. The key is to focus on Christ and put on His armor.)
5. We have all of God’s promises, but can only access what we have the ability to manage well. We have to grow into possessing the fullness of our inheritance.
6. If you’re willing to do what you’re unqualified to do, often that is what qualifies you.
7. The devil tries to splinter the family unit because of the power of a unified offering to God. Even unity outside of Christ is powerful–just look at the Tower of Babel.
8. Too many things get swept under the carpet called the Sovereignty of God. He gets blamed for whatever happens. People assume everything that happens must be His will, because He is God. God will not violate His Word, but He doesn’t mind violating our understanding of His Word.
9. God is not responsible for our potential–we are. All of Heaven has been assigned to make sure we have everything we need to reach our God-designed destiny. But we must act.
10. The primary work of the devil is to get us to discount the moment we live in. As long as we idolize another era, we’ll be blind to the importance of our own. God has a unique purpose for our lives and only unbelief and introspection can rob us from its purpose.
11. God’s job is to get us to Heaven, but our job is to bring Heaven to earth through prayer and obedience.
12. God put us on the offensive. We shouldn’t be just defending ourselves from the devil but going on the offensive into the world.
13. We are here to grow into the maturity of Christ, bring converts to Him, and transform everywhere we have authority and influence. But we fail to realize those assignments are impossible on their own. They are made possible, however, if they are the fruit of fellowshipping with God.
14. Every peace-filled moment you experience brings terror to the powers of darkness. Only in the kingdom of God is peace a military tool.
15. It’s not about what we can accomplish for God. It’s about Who goes with us and our doing all we possibly can to protect that valuable connection.
16. Sincerity alone will not save people. Someone can be sincere about God but be sincerely wrong, just as sincerely believing one is drinking juice when they are drinking strychnine does not make it any less poisonous.
17. It’s not wrong to be motivated by blessing. Even Jesus was motivated to go to the Cross because of the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).
18. Power is not more important than character, nor is character more important than power. Character and power are the two legs we stand on, equal in importance.
19. Much of what we need in life will be brought to us by God. Much of what we want, we will have to pursue.
20. One reason it’s important to learn ministry at home is because of the value of serving where there is no honor. If we don’t live by the praises of men, we’ll not die by their criticisms.
21. Too many opinions can undermine the purposes of God.
22. The difference between sympathy and compassion is sympathy gives attention to the person in need but cannot deliver them–compassion comes to set them free.
23. The God-With-Us lifestyle is one we inherited from Jesus. We must live it with the same priority of Presence Jesus had to have the same impact and purpose He did.
24. Resting is a beautiful picture of people that no longer feel the pressure to strive to prove themselves. They are comfortable in their own skins. Before we’re saved, we perform to get an identity so we’d be accepted. After we’re saved, we find out we’re accepted and that’s our identity. From that reality comes our performance.
25. Self control is not the ability to say no to a thousand other voices. It’s the ability to say yes to one thing so completely, that there’s nothing left to give to the other options.

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This book was so good, especially this second time around! While there were still a couple things super deep that I’m not understanding 100%, I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to enhance their spiritual understanding of the Holy Spirit, the Christian life, and what our role is as Christians today in hosting His Presence!

Personal Review: 5/5 Stars

What was your favorite of the above-mentioned quotes? Does this book interest you, or have you read this book before? What non-fiction books are you planning to read this year? Let me know in the comments below! God bless! ~ Kay Adelin