Steve Simms's Blog, page 107
February 4, 2023
Don’t believe in the absentee Jesus!
I once thought Jesus
Was an absentee
Far away from me.
Then I opened my heart
And now Christ in me
Fills me with glory
And inner victory.
Jesus invites people,
“Come unto Me.”
He doesn’t want to be
An absentee
In your life.
Jesus is an absentee
From the tomb
So He can live presently
With and within you.
True Christianity isn’t about an absentee Jesus left behind in the 1st century. It’s an ongoing demonstration of the risen Jesus in the 21st century. Jesus wasn’t an absentee from creation, “Through Him all things were made,” and He doesn’t want to be an absentee from you, “I am with you always.”
Maybe people’s desire to have human control and programming in church is because they think the risen Jesus is a Sunday absentee. When we make Jesus an absentee landlord looking over church services from afar, we overlook His glorious presence and reality. If Christ is in you don’t treat Him like an absentee.
Every day that you make the living Jesus an absentee in your life is a day that you reject His love and His help. An absentee Jesus isn’t the Bible Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible is everywhere. When Jesus is an absentee, a mere historical (or even personal) memory, our spiritual engine is running on nothing but religious fumes.
Jesus seems absent to absent minded Christians who neglect to focus on His presence. A Christian who feels the absence of Jesus needs to focus on Christ’s inner presence and begin to be daily led by the Spirit.
Somewhere in history churches lost the powerful sense of Christ’s immediate presence and began to treat Him like an absentee. Churches have trained Christians to follow an order of worship. Now it’s time to train them to follow the ever-present Jesus! You don’t learn to follow Jesus from sermons or Sunday school. You learn to follow Jesus by becoming aware of and obeying His inner promptings.
Since those “led by the Spirit are the children of God” (Romans 8:14) it’s essential that we learn to be Spirit-led. Jesus is alive! Be a tentmaker bent on serving and obeying the present Jesus no matter what you need to do to support yourself. Don’t be a stranger to the presence of the living Jesus! It’s time for Christians to stop relying on clergy and to begin to trust the living Jesus to empower us to encourage and minister to one another.
If you’re feeling
Spiritually dead,
The cure is to learn
To be daily Spirit-led.
February 3, 2023
Jesus was glorified by interruptions!
Many of Jesus’ teachings, healings, and miracles were in response to interruptions. Perhaps by shutting down interruptions churches shut down Jesus.
Roof altering (miracle manifesting) interruptions? (See Luke 5:17-26.) History shows that an eruption of revival and spiritual awakening will always interrupt and disrupt church programs. Interruptions disrupt two things that churches depend on: scheduling and control.
Jesus allowed and even welcomed interruptions when He was speaking. Paul told the body of Christ in Corinth to allow interruptions. “If a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop for you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.” Even the formalized religious Pharisees would interrupt Jesus with questions and challenges.
It seems to me that somehow, over the centuries, churches shut down the freedom to interrupt that Jesus so freely embraced. Without the freedom to interrupt, the Holy Spirit is confined to a program. His leading and serendipity are quenched. The roof always stays nicely fit together and paralyzed men and women stay stationary in their seats. Even when it is obvious that people are falling asleep during a sermon, no one dares to interrupt.
I woke up this morning with this thought on my mind: “The body of Christ should be a fountain of many wide-open faucets all freely flowing in God’s Spirit together.” Perhaps it’s time that we begin to follow Jesus’ model and to welcome interruptions by seeing them with the eyes of faith. Christians allow their phone to continually interrupt their life. O that we would let God do the same!
The body of Christ is built through loving relationships, not by hierarchical authority. It is built on heart-to-heart community, not compulsory unity. Church is a fountain of many faucets all shut down but one. The Spirit’s rivers of living water should be freely flowing from you, not just trickling from a preacher. A well-ordered church service can easily disrupt what Jesus wants to do in and through His gathered body.
If we don’t let the risen Jesus frequently interrupt us, it’s easy for His followers to fall into a powerless religious lifestyle. Though out my Christian life, I’ve often discovered that a church service interrupts what Jesus is saying and doing in my heart.
Don’t interrupt God when He is interrupting a sermon. When I was a nominal Christian God interrupted a sermon and spoke words in my heart suddenly showing me that I was only playing church and eventually leading me to a powerful life-long relationship with the risen Jesus. Church doesn’t become what God wants it to be until He is allowed to interrupt.
Heigh ho! Heigh ho!
It’s in the Spirit I go
Letting Jesus freely flow
And interrupt my day!
February 2, 2023
It’s simple to follow the invisible Leader
When the religious roof starts falling miracles happen! Here’s what I mean.
The various forms religious establishment have something in common. They all want to be followed. But Jesus said: “Follow Me.” After Judas caused the roof to fall in and the religious establishment had Jesus executed, He rose, ascended, and returned as the invisible Spirit–“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Today helping people follow the invisible Leader (the risen Jesus) is simple. It doesn’t require weekly lists of explanations, theology, and steps. Simply identify the Leader. Then step aside and let people open their heart to Him to listen to and obey Him together (instead of following their self-focused desires or fears) as they seek first the kingdom of God and His right living.
Jesus’s teaching about self was simple. He taught deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. He also said that if we lose our life, we will find it. Self wants to find and maintain comfort. It fears the religious establishment and feels great pressure to conform to its form of godliness that too often ignores the invisible Leader. By setting aside the demands of self, people are empowered to focus on and follow the invisible Leader together.
If you’ve ever played “follow the leader” you get this. It’s so simple that lectures that load people down with instructions are redundant. There’s no need for a lot of verbal directions. It’s hands-on learning. People are taught to play “follow the leader” by getting them started, allowing them to play, and offering caring oversight (like a basketball official) to help keep people focused on the leader.
My heart longs to see pastors and other church leaders begin to allow follow-the-invisible-Leader sessions in their services. That’s what I think awakening might look like in today’s complex context. I can fathom it because I frequently experience follow-the-invisible-Leader sessions with other people where we listen to and obey the living Jesus together. Those sessions are always amazing!
It doesn’t require weekly lectures from a religious “rocket scientist” to follow the invisible Leader–the risen Jesus. It can even be done in groups of two or three. Try it today! The closer I get to Jesus the more I see His light inside me and coming out of other believers.
To learn about
Jesus
Without
Hanging out
With Him
Will not overcome
Your doubt.
Gives me a window seat
As I ride planet earth
Through the Universe
So I can watch
The morning light
Replace the darkness
Around me
And give me His hope
To face the day.[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." src="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-34921" />Photo by Richard Harris on Pexels.com
February 1, 2023
Free gas for your heart-tank
If Jesus has touched your life that’s good. If it’s been a while since He touched your heart, you may be running on empty! Jesus offers free gas for your heart-tank. Let Him fill you daily!
A Christian who keeps Jesus in the past tense will be tense, but one who focuses on the presence of Jesus in the present will have great inner peace. Experience the touch of Jesus every day. Don’t let it become a distant memory. A heart that rejects the daily touch of the risen Jesus misses out on life’s most glorious and incredible journey.
Jesus touches my heart throughout the day and keeps me amazed at His presence and power! When Jesus touches my heart, I find myself DUI — Delighted Under the Influence of Christ’s presence. Jesus is touching my heart, right now. As I write this I am delighting in His presence.
A heart touched by Jesus once has a powerful memory. A heart touched by Jesus daily, regularly enjoys His glorious presence! Talks about Jesus are never as powerful as direct heart-touches from Jesus. Jesus wants to touch you; don’t settle for a talk.
Jesus, the Creator as a human being, isn’t confined to Sunday sermons or theological study. He demonstrates His presence to any heart that is open to Him. A mind trusting in understand theology is never as spiritually secure as a heart being continually touched by the risen Jesus. A life lived online with, aligned with, connected to, and in touch with the risen Jesus is glorious!
The presence and the touch of Jesus continue into this now moment and every now moment to come. He remains ever-present and willing. Perhaps the only thing missing is people who are consciously overwhelmed by their brokenness and alienation, face down and begging for His healing. I saw hundreds of people in that condition on the final morning of the Seedbed New Room Conference last year. What I saw and felt then continues to burn in my heart and to overwhelm me to stay face down crying out for the risen Jesus. “Lord Jesus, I behold that you are willing. The question is, am I?”
Why do human hearts need a touch from Jesus? Good and evil are fighting in every human heart — dueling desires, warring wants, and a conflicted conscience continually contend for control. A heart that rejects the touch of the risen Jesus becomes closed, hard, and cold.
Marriage is a powerful tool to open our heart to Jesus. I see marriage as a man and a woman committed to a lifetime of daily following and obeying the risen Jesus together.
I end with a heart-warmer: Every breath is a gift. Take each one in with gratitude to Jesus!
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." src="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-34915" />Photo by josiah farrow on Pexels.comJanuary 31, 2023
Don’t Toss Boss Jesus
Unbind
The boxed-up Jesus.
He’s been too long confined
And entwined
By the human mind.
His presence is
Too often declined
And removed
From life’s daily grind.
As humankind
We are designed
To be continually defined
And refined
By Him
And aligned
With His presence.
Don’t toss
Your Boss.
Make Jesus your daily Lord!
Church too often gathers
Without giving people
The opportunity
To experience the healing unity
Of unboxed Spirit-prompted,
Open-hearted community.
Some Christians only like Jesus if they can keep Him in a Sunday religious box and far away from daily life. As long as the new wine of God’s Spirit is kept boxed-up in religion, Christianity will only be a faint shadow of what God wants it to be. When Jesus is all boxed-up and neatly put away, we’re only pretending to be Christians.
Jesus is out of the grave and out of the box and He doesn’t appreciate people trying to return Him there. Boxed religion, handed out and consumed on Sunday morning, does little to change the world during the week. I need to let Jesus box me in His glorious presence, not try to box Him in my desires, feelings, and opinions.
Praying outside the religious box unlocks the power of God. Let the Holy Spirit carry your prayer to where you directly connect with the living Jesus.
Too many sermons are like boxed lunches — mass produced, bland, and quickly forgotten. The Bible doesn’t belong in a sweet religious box. It belongs in your heart where the living Jesus can ignite it!
Today Christians need more than Sunday preaching. We need one another’s spiritual and emotional support. Make church a Christ-led support group. Because human desires are often deceptive and destructive, we need discernment to decide which desires to delete and which to develop.
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." src="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-34906" />Photo by Tiger Lily on Pexels.comJanuary 30, 2023
Reality matters! Racist history, prenatal life, man and woman
An approval approach to culture attempts to cancel people’s freedom to abstain from offering applause to other people’s choices. When kindly pointing out reality is considered to be hate speech a society is sinking into deep deception. It’s not unkind to disagree when people try to define reality by their desires.
Reality matters. People who disagree with you aren’t wrong just because you want them to be.
Reality matters. Desire doesn’t define reality, but it can stop us from seeing reality.
Reality matters. A child in the womb isn’t nonhuman because the mother wants it to be.
Reality matters. The cruel racial horror in American history isn’t erased because some people want it left out of textbooks.
Reality matters. A man isn’t a woman or a woman a man because he or she wants to be.
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." src="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-34895" />Photo by Eren Li on Pexels.comMovin’ on up–beyond mental and emotional pain . . .
Mental and emotional pain are warnings that your thinking and behavior are self-damaging and need to be adjusted. To have the mind of Christ we must let God’s Spirit direct our mental traffic.
Invite the living Jesus into the home of your heart and ask Him to heal all that’s not right in there. Then open wide the door of your heart to everyone you know so that Christ in you can show Himself strong on their behalf and set them free from their demons. (See Luke 4:38-41.) If it wasn’t for demons and their inner accusations, temptations, and torment, maintaining mental health wouldn’t be so difficult.
If God can speak to your preacher God can speak directly to you! Listen to Him! Jesus said, “Learn from Me.” It’s not enough to just learn from a preacher or a book. It may be easier to trust a religious professional to hear Jesus for you, but it’s much more powerful to hear Jesus for yourself. If we believe that a religious professional needs to control a church service, then we don’t trust the Holy Spirit to directly lead it.
Everyday read the Bible with an open heart–every day, every single day–at least 5 minutes. Listen to Jesus as you read.
Let your heart
And your head
Be ever lead
By Christ in you.
Respecting human life in all colors and phases
I remember the signs
That said “Colored” and “White.”
Even as a little boy,
Completely unaware of
Critical Race Theory,
I knew that wasn’t right
And my country was wrong.
Respect all human life.
Don’t just pick and choose.
It’s not right to abuse
The miracle of human life
In any color or phase.
Wow! Wonder Of Wonders!
400 million sperm
Racing toward
A solitary egg,
But only one wins
The right
To unite
And thus begins
The wonder
Of human life.
Respect that winner
In all of life’s phases
Because that’s where you
Got your start.
January 29, 2023
America’s biggest & cruelest lie
We need a clear eye
To see beyond
America’s big lie
About black skin color.
The biggest lie in American history–told on this continent for more than 400 years–declares Black people to be inferior. Both Black people and White people in America have been influenced and brainwashed by that old, old lie. America has lived with that big lie that has made its citizens believe that it’s okay to treat Black people with less respect than White people. That lie must be boldly renounced and continually refuted until it’s no longer believed by anyone! The horrific (mostly hidden) history of disrespect for Black people in America needs to be told openly and publicly rejected.
Black skin is a gift from God that Colonial America falsely declared to be an excuse for human trafficking and abuse. 400 years later we still struggle to overcome that lie. For many generations American churches supported the lie that black skin meant people were inferior. Some still do. Millions of Black Christians speak out against racism but far too few White Christians do.
Thinking less of people based on their skin color is a cruel game, a card that should have never been played. To react to the color of a person’s skin before you know the content of their character is racial bias. Americans of African ancestry deserve no less respect and no less justice than Americans of European ancestry.
People of all skin colors are equal. Avoid acting like they aren’t. No human life should be. brutalized. We should have no tolerance for brutality! Click here for a tool to help overcome America’s biggest lie.
January 28, 2023
My Monarch
My spiritual head,
Isn't a butterfly
Or a professional guy
Who heads
A religious organization.
It's the living Jesus!People are blessed,
God is glorified,
Jesus’ love is manifest,
And we pass the test,
When we step out
Of our comfort zone nest
And obey the inner promptings
Of the Holy Spirit.
The more Christians are organized and controlled by religious systems the less they’re organized and controlled by the living Jesus. Church is about organizational control. The kingdom of God is about learning to follow and obey the inner voice of the risen Jesus. They often contradict.
When one person sets and controls the agenda for Sunday services, church becomes a human monarchy instead of an interactive, Spirit-led community. Jesus needs to be both Savior and Lord–Redeemer and Monarch! Like a Monarch Butterfly, most people see the life of Jesus Christ as beautiful, but they refuse Him absolute authority over their life as their ruling monarch.
Traditional church falsely teaches Christians that they have nothing to say and nothing to do but sit and listen. House church? A religious hierarchy that meets in a house isn’t very different than one that meets in a church building. Because Jesus is everywhere, He doesn’t need a human hierarchy to run His kingdom for Him.
The body of Christ isn’t about a religious organization; it’s about heart-to-heart connection! There’s no Shepard like the living Jesus. Follow Him every day.
Jesus announced, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” His disciples said, “We must obey God rather than man.” It’s time to, “Love your enemies.” To be gloriously forgiven, surrender your “Top Secret Documents” to the living Jesus and let Him run them through His shredder.
You need to be a sermonThat points people
To the risen Jesus.
You're not done
If you just hear one.Christians need to
Learn to say "Hi,"
Without a hierarchy,
To together stand
Without a human
Chain of command.[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." src="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-34853" />Photo by Tinthia Clemant on Pexels.com
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/pexels-photo-13980225.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/pexels-photo-8847005.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/pexels-photo-14926095.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/pexels-photo-3396669.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/pexels-photo-4487516.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/pexels-photo-7241294.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/pexels-photo-3077882.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/pexels-photo-6463628.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/pexels-photo-1557208.jpeg){kind=link}