Steve Simms's Blog, page 113

Who I love

I declare my love! You may not approve of or applaud who I love but that doesn’t mean you hate me. I love the living Jesus!

My thoughts focus on Jesus. My heart adores Him. I linger in His presence and excitedly interact with Jesus throughout the day. I’m OCD: Obsessively Christ Devoted!

Jesus first! He’s the center of my attention. Following and obeying Jesus is my number one priority in life. It causes me to want to spend all my time with Him.

My marriage is about seeking Jesus together with the amazing and adorable wife that He has given me. My friendships are about interacting with Jesus together with the incredible Christ-followers that He has brought into my life. My mission (regardless of my job or employment) is to care about and serve everybody Jesus brings my way and to speak the truth about Him and His kingdom as my heart overflows with His love. He compels me to love and forgive everybody.

Striving to do what Jesus tells me to and asking Him to show me anywhere I’m unaligned with Him, He redirects me where I’m off track. Basking in His mercy and forgiveness causes me to continually seek to surrender to His will in my thoughts, desires, feelings, opinions, and actions. I do my best to avoid anything that distracts me from the awareness of the risen Jesus or quenches His Spirit within me.

When I read what the ancient prophets and His first disciples wrote about Jesus, He makes His words burn in me. Reading the Bible every day with my heart wide open continually fans the flames of love for Jesus.

I say and write what I sense Jesus tells me to. It’s impossible to be quiet about Him! He’s so amazing. He fills me with streaming inner rivers of hope, love, revelation, trust, joy, grace, compassion, peace, self-control, power, and so much more.

Pouring out my heart in verbal adoration to Jesus, I listen to and sing along with deeply moving worship songs about Him. Throughout the day I talk to Jesus in unknown languages that pour out of my heart and make His presence more real to me than the physical surroundings.

At this point in my life, it all started 53 years ago. Reluctantly walking into an informal gathering of passionate Christ-followers who were telling each other about how they had first encountered Jesus, I was suddenly and astonishingly aware of a presence never felt before. In an instant I was changed from deep within. From that moment until now passionately love for Jesus has dominated my heart.

The greatest blessing in my life is to help someone else fall in life-long passionate love for the risen Jesus! If you will begin to consistently talk to Him with an open, honest, and humble heart and observe what happens inside of you, at some point you’ll be suddenly love struck and Jesus will be the One who you love!

It’s popular today to declare who you love. It’s time for Christians to let our words and our lifestyle demonstrate that we love Jesus!

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If you cling to the vine, you’ll be fine!

Jesus is the vine,
We are the branches.
If we don’t stay connected
We’ll be mostly unaffected
By His presence and power.

Continually upgrade
Your connection
With Jesus,
Refuse to evade
His presence.
Never let Him fade
From your awareness.

Many Christians live like they’re plugged into a powerless religious outlet–uninspired and discouraged. Plug your heart into the risen Jesus! If you’re not experiencing a never-ending inner power flow from the living Jesus, there’s a disconnection somewhere. Be a Jesus clinger!

Powerless Christianity is dangerous. It causes people to believe they’re right with God but doesn’t motivate them to continually surrender the risen Jesus. When the power is out. People don’t need lectures about electricity. They need the power restored. We need the risen Jesus, not religious talks about Him!

Not only is possible to live in heart-to-heart moment-by-moment connection with the risen Jesus, it’s glorious to do so! Learn to connect to the risen Jesus with your heart and to let Him freely stream from within you.

Too many Christians settle for having an occasional little talk with Jesus instead of ongoing, heart-to-heart connection with Him. The formalized Jesus confined to church programs offers little power to change people’s lives, but the risen Jesus is still doing miracles.

Anyone who has ever been troubled by a thought or a feeling knows the power of invisible things. The living Jesus is now invisible but is also omnipotent–all powerful! Unless we intentionally work to cultivate a healthy inner relationship with the risen Jesus our mind and heart will be filled with weeds.

Before “Christ in you” became a reality, the Old Testament gave extremely detailed descriptions of religious ceremonies and formats to be followed. However, now that Christ lives in His followers, the New Testament calls us to be led by His Spirit. Today we’re called to follow the risen Jesus, not detailed religious procedures.

No matter how much we say “Jesus is Lord,” if we won’t let Him take direct control of a church service, we don’t truly believe it. If we won’t trust Jesus to actively lead and direct a church service, do we really trust Him about anything else?

It’s good to have
A biblical word view
But without a clear view
Of the living Jesus
Self-righteousness
Can fall on us like dew
And skew
Our faith
Until we don’t have a clue
And begin to do
Ungodly things
In the name of God
Like the Pharisees did.

Sermons can sprinkle
Your mind with spots
Of theological information
But unless the risen Jesus
Connects the dots
They’ll just be empty pots.

Praising the eloquence
Of a pastor
Is easier
Than obedience
To be the living Jesus.

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The call that’s out of this world!

The New Testament calls Christians the “called out ones.” That’s the literal meaning of the Greek word that is translated as “church” in most English Bibles. Christ-followers are called to no longer be conformed to the cultures of this world but to follow and obey the risen Jesus instead.

We are called out of:

Fear into faith,Sadness into joy,Worry into peace,Hostility into love,Pride into humility,Anxiety into patience,Corruption into purity,Chaos into self-control,Rudeness into kindness,Apathy into compassion,Rebellion into surrender,Discouragement into hope,Wrongdoing into goodness,Resentment into forgiveness,Troublemaking into peacemaking.

That Greek word that was translated as church (ekklesia) was also the name of the participatory town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities where the citizens were called to come together to interact with each other and to freely share their concerns about the city. Christ-followers are called out to connect heart-to-heart with each other and to help each other follow the risen Jesus out of earthy systems and structures and into the kingdom (government) of God by learning to be led from within by God’s Spirit.

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Christmas is too often like the World Cup without soccer

Christmas and Christians without the living Jesus visibly, presently, and actively working in and through them are like the World Cup without soccer or the Super Bowl without football. They are like a darkened light house.

The Christmas season overflows with decorations and pageantry but rarely has any room for the living Jesus. When Christmas is spelled without a space, Christ is crowded out and not pronounced. Make a space in Christ_mas for the living Jesus.

The Light of the living Jesus dawned about 2,000 years ago. Looking to the birth of Jesus and beyond, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “On those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Ever since the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there’s no reason for humans to live in or to even linger in darkness. Jesus tells his followers, “You are the light of the world.” Paul reminds Christians that “God has shinned in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

People don’t wait until Christmas Day to put up and turn on their Jesus-birth lights. How the hurting people around us need to see Christians who will dazzle them with the brightness of Christ’s light all year long!

Without the active and present working of the living Jesus, Christmas is like a huge puppet show without a puppeteer. In order to let the risen Jesus empower us to be the ever-shinning stadium lights of the kingdom of God we need to go beyond religion and church as usual.

Instead of repeating the same Sunday morning routine until people finally drop out of church, perhaps it would be better to graduate people and send them out with prayer and blessing to live their daily lives all year long in the power and presence of the living Jesus. There are much more effective ways to disciple people and empower them to shine their light than making them dependent on a Sunday sermon.

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Self-dependency eventually leads to despondency

When you depend on temporary situations for happiness your happiness soon departs. Self-dependency will also eventually let you down and lead to despondency. It’s like your shadow. When the dark night comes self-dependency dissipates.

I’ve been deceived and disappointed too many times to depend any longer on my own desires, feelings, or opinions. If you’re looking for a solid foundation for your life, don’t depend on yourself. Trust in and rely on God. If you depend on anything but God, you can depend on being disappointed.

Faith means to be God-dependent–to trust in and rely on Him rather than self. The more I depend on His inspiration, the more I’m inspired.

Depend on yourself and you’ll be let down into discouragement. Depend on the risen Jesus and you’ll be lifted up into inner peace. Your feelings, desires, and opinions will be unreliable as long as your heart is out of focus. Depending on God means that you free to depend less on yourself and on other people.

No human is totally dependable. I had to look higher than humanity to find Someone I can trust to never let me down. My life has been changed, directed, and protected by God’s intervention so many times that I’ve learned to depend on Him.

Gather with Jesus
And a few friends,
Then depend on Him
And follow His lead.

Open churches without open hearts don’t depend on the Lord. What’s controlled from a stage is staged. What flows from hearts touched by the presence of Jesus is genuine. Hearing lectures about your friend would be a poor substitute for spending time together. Jesus is my Friend. I want to interact with and be dependent on Him, not to hear talks about Him.

Church teaches us information about Jesus, but until we learn to daily depend on and rely on Jesus, that info isn’t very helpful. Relying on a church service to keep you close to God is like trusting in a food TV show to keep you well fed. Church does us a disservice when it trains people to listen to a weekly lecture about God, but not to daily lean on and rely on Him.

Church says to depend on a solitary preacher for Christian guidance, but the Bible declares, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Let’s go beyond depending on religion. Let’s actively help each other depend on the living Jesus. If Christians relied as much on “Christ in you” as we do on a preacher in a pulpit, spiritual awakening would become our continuous condition.

Organization and programming prevent revival. God doesn’t work according to human specifications. Dare to tear up the program and depend on God’s Spirit instead.

Limiting church to some stage led songs and a one-man sermon greatly restricts what God can do. Jesus said, “Follow Me.” He never said, “Listen to a weekly talk about Me.”

Now is the time
To depend on God to do
What He wants to
In and through you.

You can depend on this: Christianity isn’t about religious organizations and religious belief systems. It’s about a personal relationship with the risen Jesus. Let every step you take be a walk with the risen Jesus carefully following His lead.

Now is the time to depend on the risen Jesus! We’re living in God’s now timing. The time to trust in and depend on the living God is always now. No matter our circumstances, in spite of our feelings, desires, pain, or confusion, and regardless of apparent delays, those who belong to Jesus can be supernaturally assured that God will never leave us or forsake us; that Christ in us is the hope of glory, and that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter abiding within us and dynamically empowering us with strength and faith — “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

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Good fear produces good vibes . . .

The fear of the Lord isn’t about dodging lightning bolts. It’s about letting your heart be overwhelmed by His glorious light. Too many people want God’s approval, but the fear of the Lord makes us realize that what we really need is His mercy and forgiveness. Embracing the fear of the Lord fills you with His stupefying love that casts out the fears that have been tormenting you.

Our society doesn’t need more church attendance. We need more people greatly impacted by the fear of the Lord. Hiding and pretending you have nothing to fear from God is cruelly self-deceptive. Hope comes by surrendering to His love and mercy.

The fear of the Lord is like the fear of meeting a celebrity you admire. It’s the awe you feel when you open your heart to God’s greatness. It’s like spending time interacting with a human hero you greatly admire. You overflow with respect and awe. The fear of the Lord is the good and healthy fear that calls us to flee our bondage and to fully surrender to His love.

Without the fear of the Lord, human beings are easily influenced and ensnared by evil. The fear of the Lord frees us from the extremes of open rebellion and self-righteous religion so we can find true peace with God.

We say we want to be loved, but receiving intense love is scary because it will strongly bind us to someone. We can run or surrender. Face the fear of the Lord and embrace God’s love!

The closer I get to God’s holiness the more I sense a wholesome respect, awe, and fear for Him and the more I want His mercy. The justice of God is frightening. It means that the judgment I’ve earned must be carried out. I’m undone that Christ bore my judgment.

The fear of the Lord is like the fear you feel when truth that you’re uncomfortable with and/or ashamed of is exposed. It’s the fear of God’s complete honesty. Without the fear of the Lord, we humans try to rationalize away our great need for mercy, forgiveness, and deliverance.

The fear of the Lord is to be deeply moved by His majesty, shaken by His splendor, and gripped by His greatness. It’s the awareness that there’s nowhere to hide. God is truth and light. He knows and sees everything about you. The fear of the Lord shows us that it’s useless to run from Him and invites us to surrender our rebellion to His mercy and grace.

The fear of the Lord is the awareness of accountability–the knowledge that truth, light, and justice will ultimately prevail. It makes us conscious of His holiness and our sinfulness. It reveals out great need to receive His love, mercy, and forgiveness.

The most courageous people in the world are those who have surrendered to the fear of the Lord. They fear nothing else.

Christians today focus too much on church mechanics and not enough Holy Spirit dynamics and the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord helps us realize that earth has already been invaded by God incarnate (Jesus) and is currently being colonized by the kingdom of God. Jesus told his disciples “The kingdom of God is within you.” Jesus tells us to make seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness our number one priority in life! Our life on earth is supposed to be about surrendering to the living God and letting Him bring us from glory to glory into ever greater obedience to His direct inner rule, authority, and dominion.

God wants to overflow you with so much inspiration from within you that you don’t feel the need to depend on outward inspiration. If you’re not reading the Bible every day with an open heart and praying, going to church can easily become a mere religious exercise.

To preach without passion, excitement, and enthusiasm is to disrespect history’s greatest news! If a preacher isn’t deeply moved and personally stirred by what he’s preaching the congregation won’t be either. I’ve found few churches that make people who are continuously and visibly thrilled about Jesus feel welcome.

When Chistianity
Was ritualized
And systematized
It was lobotomized
And cut off
From the direct
Control of Christ
It’s living Head.

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God always treats me better than I deserve

My life is full
Of gifts from God
That I didn’t earn
And I don’t deserve.

My heart often fills up with undeserved joy. I owe God everything. I don’t deserve any blessing that He has given me. The more clearly I see my own heart, the more I’m aware that God treats me far better than I deserve.

I trust in God’s mercy, not my merit. I’m unworthy and underserving. I’m not good enough. I don’t measure up to God’s standards.

No one earns or deserves God’s love. He freely gives it. The nature of love is undeserved. True love is given, never earned or coerced. It takes courage, insight, and humility to realize that God treats you better than you deserve.

Only undeserving people can receive forgiveness, mercy, and grace. No one has a right to those things. Believing that we’re entitled makes us feel cheated. Believing that we’re undeserving make us feel grateful. Instead of proudly trying to earn God’s approval, humbly bow down and receive His mercy and forgiveness.

To deserve anything, you must measure up to it. To receive grace, you must be unworthy of it. We cannot be grateful to God or to other people for the things that we falsely believe we’ve accomplished totally on our own.

Think about this: No matter how much you’ve disgraced God, He continues to offer you the opportunity to receive his forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

No one can ever earn or deserve your forgiveness or God’s. Forgiveness is a gift that’s freely given.

Lord, help me
To see
That the things
I think I’ve earned
Are really
Your undeserved
Gifts to me.

When we try
To use muscle
To overcome
Life’s hustle bustle
We rustle up
More and more stress
And wind up in
An even bigger tussle.
The best way
To reduce stress
Is to surrender,
To lay down our mess,
And to learn
To daily experience
God’s peaceful rest
So that we can
Let the wind
Of God’s Spirit
Continually unwind
Our tangled mind
And troubled heart.

Beyond Christmas to Christ in you

Jesus was born
In Bethlehem
But until I let Him
Live in me
I couldn’t see
His glorious reality!

Religious ceremony
And sanctimony
Are no substitute
For a personal testimony
About how Jesus
Became real in your life.

Emmanuel, God with us.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Without heart surrender
To the living Jesus
Christmas celebration
Becomes mere sentimental
Ornamentation.

Christ in the manger was step one but let Christmas continue until Christ is living in you and transforming you with His glory. To shift your focus to the Light of Christ keep your attention on the living Jesus and let His presence ever consume you. (Listen to the song, “Nothing Else” by Rick Pino.)

Christmas is seasonal. Christ in you should never be tied to a season!

Jesus presents His presence and offers to take up residence in and to direct the present moment of those who will perceive, receive, and obey Him. From the Christmas events to the Cross and Resurrection, the four Gospels are full of Christ encounters. Don’t just read them to learn. Read them to discern and to encounter the living Jesus. Christ in the manger was step one but let Christmas continue until Christ is living in you and daily transforming you with His glory.

Remembrance or experience? (Does Advent add up?)

Remembering Jesus in the past and experiencing Him in the present are both vital to true Christianity. Jesus told His disciples that He would be in them and remain in them, but He also told them to remember Him. Why? We need to remember His life in the flesh so that we aren’t misled about who He is. Yet, we also need to continually experience His presence in our daily lives so that we’re empowered to hear and obey Him.

Advent services show that churches are good at remembering Jesus in the past. Many churches prominently display these words: “This do in remembrance of Me.” However, churches shy away from encouraging and empowering people to experience and obey Jesus in worship services and in their daily lives.

It’s fine to celebrate
Jesus’ birth in the past
And to look forward to
His coming in the future
But let’s also wake up to
His presence in the present!

Remembrance
Of Jesus
Without the experience
Of His presence
In daily life
Is incomplete!

I remember Jesus when I read the Gospels (or the Christmas story). I experience Him when I freely surrender my will to His. Remembering Jesus’ physical life in the past should never be an excuse for ignoring His presence in the now!

Advent season? If Christ is with us, we don’t need to prepare for His arrival. We need to wake up to His presence.

True Christianity isn’t seasonal. It causes people to focus on and interact with the presence of the living Jesus 24/7/365!

People don’t prepare for the arrival of a guest who’s staying in their home. They interact with Him. Christ is already present! Church has trained us to view Jesus through ritualized and formalized eyes so that now we don’t realize His glory in daily life.

Jesus’ birth was the never-ending beginning of God with us. You don’t have to find Him in Bethlehem. He’ll meet you where you are.

Advent is a great time to awaken to Christ’s always abiding with us. His radiance remains throughout the years to reside in us, revive us, and restore us. Its efficacy has not been overcome! Keep Christ’s eternal light ever in your sight!

Remembering the birth of Christ should be a wake-up call, not a snooze button! At Christmas Jesus’ birth is seen as sweet but that’s not how King Herod and the people of Jerusalem saw it. They were “disturbed!” True grace ignores your “Do Not Disturb” sign and confronts you with truth.

When Jesus came
And comes again
Are both beyond
My experience.
But His presence now–
Wow! Wow! Wow!–
Somehow
Fills
And thrills
My heart
With His glory!

Gratitude,
Gratitude,
Re-gratitude
Until it becomes
An ongoing cycle
In your heart
And in your mind.

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Be a Spirit-led Christian not a snooze-controlled one

If church would be as careful not to offend God as not to offend attendees, there would be massive spiritual awakening. When church sends people home after a sermon without facilitating heart-to-heart connection and sharing among them, it encourages them to be Lone Ranger Christians. Unless you let Jesus capture your consciousness you’ll drift into distraction.

Here’s the deal:
Too many Christians
Are asleep
To the thrill
Of Jesus
Being real!

Be Spirit-led
Not a spiritual
Sleepy head
Wanting to be
Spoon fed
By a preacher.

To see love for Jesus
As merely sacramental
Makes it incidental,
Tied to holy places
Where we go to touch
Religious bases.
Sunday ceremony
Too often replaces
Passionate discipleship
In daily life.

We too often
Get caught up
In the pageantry
And religious gadgetry
Of formalized Christianity
And miss the reality
Of His daily presence.

Christians are called to walk in the Spirit, not to walk in our sleep. Those who settle in and comfortably set their life on mindless cruise control lose their passion for Jesus and snooze away. Hearing a weekly talk about alarm clocks won’t wake you up. You have to actually hear and respond to the alarm itself! The Holy Spirit and the Bible are God’s alarm clock.

When you get a wake-up call from God it’s best if you don’t get irritated and hit the snooze button. God doesn’t give wake-up calls so that you can deal with them and quickly move back into your comfort zone, but so that you can seriously reorient your life to His will. Wake up to consciousness of your conscience and to continual awareness of God’s presence.

Too often church is like the lullaby of a white noise machine making soft soothing sounds that facilitate sleep. When church shifted from Spirit-led doing to passive sermon-hearing it settled in for a looooooooong winter’s night. It’s wakeup time! Perhaps preaching needs to be an attention-grabbing, alarm-sounding wake-up call instead of a nice religious lullaby.

After decades of church attendance and careful observation, I’ve come to the conclusion that sermons are much more sleep inducing than disciple producing. Be a Spirit-led Christian not a snooze-controlled one. Wakeup to the reality of Jesus! Daily experience the thrill of His presence!

Lord, help me be
Spiritually awake,
Surrendered to Jesus
And not be a religious fake.

Have you taken
The time to awaken
Your heart to Jesus?
Have you shaken
Off spiritual slumber?

An effective wake-up call must be rousing and uncomfortable. Until we’re willing to disturb the comfortable, dry bones will sleep.

Jesus-encounter-meetings where Christ-followers gather to interact with and obey Jesus are indescribably amazing! Try one!

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