Steve Simms's Blog, page 114

If you don’t want to wake up, don’t obey 2 Chronicles 7:14

God has much more of His presence and power that He wants to give you right now. All that’s required is that you surrender to His will and continually cry out for His help.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God states conditions for spiritual awakening. It isn’t addressed to individuals. It’s something God’s people are called to do when we meet together: 1) Humble ourselves, 2) Pray, 3) Seek God’s face, and 4) Turn from our wicked ways.

None of that involves passively listening to a sermon. A great way to begin to obey that verse is to gather with Christians to spontaneously and humbly walk in the light together by testifying, quoting Scriptures, praying, sharing revelations, confessing, repenting, and singing together as prompted by the Spirit while absorbed in the adoration of the risen Jesus. See 1 Corinthians 14:26.

Unfortunately, instead of walking in the light together, church is often a safe spot for Christians to be religious Lone Rangers. It has become a place where people can hide from spiritual interaction and personal accountability.

Darkness is inviting and alluring because it gives us a false sense of isolation from the rebellion, brokenness, and corruption in our heart. Darkness empowers us to feel like we aren’t that bad and to sincerely say and believe that “I’m a good person,” when the Bible clearly states that “There is none righteous, no not one.”

It’s only by coming into God’s light with other people and humbly uncovering the truth about who we really are deep down inside that we begin to fully embrace grace, mercy, forgiveness, healing, and deliverance. We need to abide (24/7/365) in God’s light, not to hide in the cover of night!

When we stop being hungry and passionate for a deeper experience with God, we settle for less than He wants to give us. When we think we don’t need God and that we don’t need to spiritually connect with other Christ-followers then we don’t pursue God and instead settle into religious complacency.

Ego makes grace a no-go. It’s a grace rejector. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Whether consciously or unconsciously, when you disconnect from God, you reject or neglect His appeals to interact heart-to-heart with Him and with other believers. If your relationship with Jesus is bland and routine. then you’re not seeking first the kingdom of God and walking in the Light with Him and with others in the body of Christ.

So how can we more effectively live out 2 Chronicles 2:14? Let’s meet together to:

Embrace humility. Instead of protecting our pride, let’s openly and honestly humble ourselves in front of each other by obeying God’s Spirit no matter how embarrassing it may seem to be. Pray. Praying is not a spectator sport. The preacher can’t do your praying for you. Everyone needs to be free to pray aloud and to pour their heart out to God openly in the congregation. The Bible calls for “fervent” prayer. Let’s embrace and encourage that kind of heart-felt passionate praying when we meet together.Seek God’s face. When we meet, we need to “draw near to God,” not to keep our distance. Let’s be completely honest with God, with ourselves, and with each other as we actively and intently pursue intimacy with the living God. When we meet together let’s be attentive to and courageously obey His inner promptings.Turn from our wicked ways. The New Testament calls the turning away from sin repentance and confession. It says: “Confess your sins to one another.” Let’s be brave enough to actually do that when we gather in Jesus’ name. If you don’t think you have any sins that you should openly confess, sincerely ask God to show you anywhere that you’re off track. When He does walk in the light you just received and openly confess.[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-34185" />Photo by Aphiwat chuangchoem on Pexels.com

Nodding heads aren’t a sign of spiritual awakening!

It’s sad that in most churches spontaneous sleeping is permitted, but spontaneous testifying about the living Jesus isn’t. Perhaps we’ve cultivated the wrong kind of spontaneity. How many nodding heads does it take before we realize that church is putting people to sleep?

People today are looking for
Heart-felt authenticity,
Not for religious passivity.

Church needs to go from glory to glory, not from sermon to sermon. Let’s take off our dark Son-glasses so we can see Jesus clearly

A church where the same person speaks each week while everybody else is kept quiet is like a house with only one electrical outlet. (Now that’s shocking!) God uses church the way it is but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t want it to be much more effective at spreading His power and presence.

It’s time to demonstrate
The reality of Jesus
Not to elaborate
About Him.

Church attendance isn’t the cure for Lone Ranger Christians. Many church attendees refuse to connect heart-to-heart with others. Their Lone Ranger mask tells everyone around them to leave them alone.

On Sunday morning churches count their sheep and then quite often make them sleepy. People joke about people sleeping in church. That’s double boredom–being so bored that you need to be entertained by people who are asleep.

We need congregations
Full of activated believers,
Not weighed down
With passive receivers.

When Christians gather to all obey the Spirit’s inner promptings, everybody present can see Jesus working thru various people. We had a guest once who flattened and blocked all but one of the water outlets on our shower head leaving us with a single trickle. That’s how I feel in church. Make church ekklesia again!

Faith’s not a cool long-distance relationship with a formalized Jesus. It’s a passionate relationship with the here-and-now Jesus.

When church tells folks
To listen and not
Make a peep
They put the sheep
To sleep.

When people directly encounter the risen Jesus, their body language doesn’t give the sound of silent boredom. They are roused! If a wake-up call is comfortable, you’ll sleep right thru it. For church to become a wake-up call it must become uncomfortable!

Church needs to cultivate
Direct encounter with Jesus
Not just try to motivate
People to be religious.

When church is a spiritual mattress Christians snooze. What’s your spiritual “Sleep Number”?

It takes more than sermons to rouse a deaf church. Ears that won’t spiritually hear need to see Christ demonstrated in actions. Jesus said to hear what the Spirit says to the body of Christ. Unless we hear God’s Spirit, the words of a preacher are powerless.

By being passive
In their church seat
Christians too often sit
And accept defeat.

Church should be a gathering where people open up and support each other, not a place where they’re silenced by religious tradition. Revival happens when Christians awaken to the glory of God. Hearing sermons isn’t the hope of glory; “Christ in you,” is! If sermon-hearing brought revival, churches would thrive in the thrill of God’s glory every Sunday. Do they?

Christians need to gather
To help each other
Experience God’s spiritual fire
Not to be made comfortable
With our own desire.

Shepherds cultivate an environment where sheep can grow strong and healthy. They don’t lecture them. (Pastors should be shepherds.) One moment of experiencing the glory of God will teach a Christ-follower more than years of sermon-hearing. Instead of tickling our ears, church should thrill our heart with the presence, splendor, and majesty of the risen Jesus.

Church too often
Pampers people’s passivity
Instead of stirring up
Their spiritual intensity.

Communion is heart-to-heart interaction with the living Jesus. It’s so much more than a tiny bit of bread and wine (or juice). Eucharist (the ceremony of “the Lord’s Supper”) without encountering the glory of God becomes a mere religious exercise.

Religious hearts
Unkindled by
The presence
Of Christ,
Cold and even frozen,
Are they really
The chosen?

Sleeping Christians living in a dying culture put their trust in politics more than in the risen Jesus. It’s not enough to get out the vote. We need to get out of our comfort zone to read and obey what God wrote!

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For revival be Jesus-friendly (not seeker-friendly or Jesus-distancing)

The greatest hindrance to Christian revival and spiritual awakening is Jesus-distancing. If you’re often unaware of the presence and power of Jesus, you’ve been Jesus-distancing. Jesus-distancers do all they can to dodge Jesus but Jesus said, “Come unto Me,” not “Keep your distance.”

Many church attendees actively practice Jesus-distancing during the church service. You can see it in their body language. Jesus-distancers prefer religious sentimentality instead of Spirit-led intimacy with Jesus.

Too many churches are more seeker-friendly than Jesus-friendly. Jesus-friendly churches make lots of room for the risen Jesus to demonstrate his power and presence in their midst. They allow the risen Jesus to frequently interrupt and redirect their meetings.

They are eager to give the living Jesus full and direct control of their worship services. When you enter a Jesus-friendly church meeting you sense His awesome presence and power. Jesus-distancers try to avoid Jesus-friendly churches.

Jesus-distancing prevents God’s Spirit from spreading. Still, too many Christians regularly practice Jesus-distancing. We say we love Jesus, but day by day we keep our heart far from Him. The more we structure and formalize our faith the more we embrace Jesus-distancing.

Jesus-distancing isn’t measured by feet (or by meters) but by the hardness of your heart. Many of the people who practice Jesus-distancing like to mask their hard heart and to pretend to praise Him. They try to look religious while having minimal contact with the risen Jesus.

Jesus-distancing churches have sermons and ceremonies about Jesus, but they don’t let Him take direct control of their Sunday morning worship service. Programming a church service and allowing only the pastor to speak is a very effective way to practice Jesus-distancing.

Too many pastors feel entitled to dominate a church service instead of empowering the congregation to obey God’s Spirit. Christian leaders should hide behind the risen Jesus, not step in front of Him.

To experience the glory of Spirit-led awakening, we don’t have to abandon church, but we do need to overcome Jesus-distancing and to surrender full control of the meetings to the risen Jesus. My heart longs to see churches open up their meetings to the presence and control of God’s Spirit.

Life’s distractions and temptations demand our attention and tend to steer us away from focusing on the presence and glory of Jesus. Active, willful, and/or unconfessed sin is another cause of Jesus-distancing.

The harder your heart the easier it is to Jesus-distance and to let your heart grow even harder. If you want to rebel against something, rebel against Jesus-distancing by always hanging tightly with Him.

Trying to keep the risen Jesus in the past or in the future is a form of Jesus-distancing. If you’re Jesus-distancing in your heart it doesn’t matter how much you do religious things and try to look coolly churchy.

“We have seen His glory.” John wrote his Gospel in the past tense. The King is already among us! Emmanuel–God with us. When we’re unaware of Jesus’ daily presence and glory in our lives, we are somehow overlooking His arrival on planet earth, His invitation for us to abide in Him, and His promise: “Lo, I am with you always.” Even when we can’t see or sense a glimmer of hope, this truth remains steadfast: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

The body of Christ needs courageous leaders who will cultivate and oversee gatherings where people can be free to follow and obey the promptings of God’s Spirit. If Christian leaders would cultivate a Spirit-led environment and not dominate the proceedings, God’s Spirit would activate and empower ordinary people to speak up. Be Jesus-friendly, not Jesus-distancing.

Your self-identity isn’t an independent entity. It’s only your opinion of who you are. Your Creator knows who you are better than you do. Get close to Jesus and learn who you really are!

The more you avoid
The risen Jesus
The greater grows
The aching void
In your heart.

Too often we build our lives
In rooms
Of insignificance
And miss
The significance
Of wonder and awe.

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“Lazyanity”–the passive & comfortable Christianity

“Lazyanity” falsely believes that Christians stay afloat in life’s raging waves of temptation and corruption without treading water. Jesus is everywhere but instead of seeking and embracing demonstrations of His presence “lazyanity” settles into ceremony and routine.

True grace makes us hunger and thirst for righteousness. “Lazyanity” causes us passively sit in false security and religious pride. “Comfortable Christianity” is a polite way to say “lazyanity.”

“Lazyanity” is spectator-friendly Christianity but it’s not friendly to people who passionately “seek first the kingdom of God.” “Lazyanity” unintentionally bores people with the most glorious reality in the universe–“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Catherine Booth, cofounder of The Salvation Army, didn’t like “lazyanity.” In her book “Aggressive Christianity” she wrote: “Rise up on the strength of God and resolve to conquer.”

When church becomes mere routine it nestles into “lazyanity.” When Christianity morphed into “lazyanity,” the Bible’s Spirit-led ekklesia morphed into the passivity of program-led church.

It’s free
To be
A church attendee
To listen
To a lesson
Each week
And not make a peep.

The preacher speaks
But the congregation
Makes the sound of silence.

Perhaps Christians don’t need one person to do all the talking when they gather for worship. Maybe they could be a support group instead of an audience.

People of the Spirit are caught up in & carried along by God’s Spirit, not their own desires.

My desires to be lazy are deterrents to discipleship. I want the risen Jesus, not my desires, to direct my daily life and determine my destiny.

Jesus is often lazily
Unrecognized,
Overlooked
And hidden
By what we call
Ordinary circumstances,
Random occurrences,
Or mere coincidences.
Lift your gaze
Beyond life’s haze.
Look closer
And really see
How you’re surrounded
By His awesome
Love and mystery.

Too many Christians
Are being led
By the thoughts
Swirling in their head
And being fed
By their own desires,
But instead
They need to be led
And fed
By Jesus,
The living Head
Of His true followers.

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Good works, faith-rest, and a rubber squeeze coin purse

Your heart is like a football-shaped rubber squeeze coin purse. If you won’t work to continually hold it open to God and to other people, it will suddenly snap shut.

Much that is called Christianity is merely human effort and programming. It requires nothing supernatural because it is set up, organized, and run by human ability and hard religious work. However, when you read the New Testament, you discover a faith-based Christianity that relied on actual demonstrations of the presence and power of the risen Jesus, not on the human striving.

When Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God, He wasn’t referring to using religious effort to accomplish things for God. No amount of human good works can enable a person to come under and be a part of God’s government (kingdom). The Scriptures clearly state that people are saved by faith and not by the works of their human effort.

John the Baptist explained it like this: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” How is that done? By doing everything we can to hold our heart open to God and to other people and to continually make plenty of room for Christ in us to do His work (not ours) within us and through us.

No matter how hard you work and/or how religious you are, if you don’t intentionally hold your heart open you won’t be able to experience the kingdom of God. Therefore, instead of working to accomplish things for God, the key to New Testament Christianity is to begin to faith-rest from your own attempts to be religiously productive, to continually hold your heart open to God, and to empty it of everything that resists God’s will so that He can have full access to do His work in and through you.

In a culture dominated by human effort to meet their own desires, people who seek to let their heart be ruled by Christ will brightly shine. Jesus first!

“Try less. Trust more.” God recently spoke those words in my heart. Now I’m discovering that the only way I can truly trust God is to focus intently on keeping my heart open and on letting Him freely work in me unrestricted by my desires and effort.

Merry today! Don’t wait for Christmas Day to celebrate God’s amazing gifts to you!

The time between the first Advent (coming) of Jesus and His second coming is the Spirit-led era of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”Advent, the annual remembrance and celebration of Jesus’ birth, should never be a substitute for daily experiencing His presence.

Christmas celebrations and Advent calendars can unintentionally crowd out the glorious mystery of the birth of Jesus–the God-man–“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”. For too many Christians Jesus remains the infant stranger in the manger instead of the infinite Lord on the throne of their heart.

Jesus was the world’s most amazing baby–God with us! Then He grew up, was crucified, raised from the dead, and is now ever-present. He’s not a baby anymore!

Christ’s birth isn’t an annual event. It happened just once and prepared the way for humans to have a personal, ongoing relationship with Jesus. Keep Christ in the Advent season. Instead of treating His birth like it’s in the future, surrender to His ever-present power and glory.

If you’re waiting for Jesus to come to you, He’s waiting for you to open your heart’s door and make room for Him. If the Advent season causes you to turn your eyes to Jesus, where have your eyes been focused during the off season?

Remember to celebrate your personal Advent. That’s the moment when Christ came to live in and make His home in you and be your hope of glory. The beautiful history of Jesus’ birth should never distract us from His desire to live in and lead us from within our heart today. There was no room for Jesus to be born in the Bethlehem inn. Is there enough room in your heart for Him to arrive and thrive there?

There’s no need to countdown to what already is. Christ is already here. He’s ever-present.

Jesus doesn’t need an Advent calendar. He, Himself, is the way, the truth, and the life! Merry today! Don’t wait for Christmas Day to celebrate God’s amazing gifts to you!

When Jesus
Lives within
Your heart
Celebrating
His presence
Needs never
To end.

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Is the human heart a cauldron of rebellion?

The human brain
Isn’t a train
To run on a track.
It’s a tool
To gain
Fresh insight.

Light reveals.
Darkness hides.
Moment by moment
We choose sides.

God’s call
Isn’t to fake
Being good.
It’s to let Him remake
Our rebellious heart.

Planet earth is a cauldron of rebellion. We humans have chosen to follow our desires instead of God’s. Let God clean the cauldron of your heart. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”

The Lord God Omnipotent could nip your rebellion in the bud. Instead, He patiently and loving calls for you to freely surrender to His will.

If you try to faithfully obey your conscience, you come to realize that you can’t be truly good by your own effort. Something inside you needs to be changed.

It’s much easier to loudly redefine what we call right than it is to actually do what our conscience says is right. When an idea violates my conscience, no matter how much I love the person who proclaims it, I must kindly disagree.

Sin boils in the cauldron of human hearts, ready to rumble out at any moment. Conscience tries to restrain it but only Jesus can drain it.

The Bible’s full of life-giving words that bring fresh bread to my hungry heart. Light reveals hope. Darkness conceals it. If the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit aren’t actively noticeable in a church service, there might be a sermon but there’s no visible demonstration of the Spirit.

Jesus showed me
My sin’s reality
And caused me
To see
Life differently.

To rebel against
The absolute
Is not astute.
You can’t refute
And forever mute
Reality.

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Put Jesus in Christmas

If you want Christ in Christmas, then this holiday season substitute the name of Jesus for the word Christmas. Jesus, all I want for Christmas is a closer relationship with You.” (Think what impact there would be if between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day we heard, read, and said the name of Jesus as much as we do the word Christmas.)

“It’s Jesus time,” instead of “It’s Christmas time.”

“Jesus gifts,” rather than “Christmas gifts.”

“Jesus carols,” instead of “Christmas carols.”

“Jesus season,” instead of “Christmas season.”

“Jesus bells,” instead of “Christmas bells.”

“Jesus giving,” rather than “Christmas giving.”

“Jesus holidays,” instead of “Christmas holidays.”

“Jesus lights,” rather than “Christmas lights.”

“Jesus shopping,” instead of “Christmas shopping.”

“Jesus tree,” rather than “Christmas tree.”

“Jesus cards,” instead of “Christmas cards.”

“Jesus day,” instead of “Christmas Day.”

“I’ll be home for Jesus,” rather than “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

“Happy Jesus’ Birthday,” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

The Bible says there is power in the name of Jesus, however, it never even mentions the word Christmas.

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Desperation can lead to freedom and joy

Your heart-cry doesn’t echo in a canyon of inner emptiness. It continually reverberates within you, ever calling you to wake up to deeper reality.

In the recovery community the desperation that leads to freedom and joy is called “hitting bottom.” If you’re desperate, that means you’re still alive. If you’re still alive, then there is still hope.

Desperation is a fork in the road. It offers two options, the hopeful and joyous pursuit of God or the despair of panicked hopelessness.

Desperation as a sign of hopelessness is devastating. Desperation as deep hunger to be closer to God is gloriously life-altering. Let the debris in your life make you desperate for God. The long-term guilt and pain produce by sin should make us so desperate for God’s peace that we avoid its short-term pleasure.

Finite faith (trust in the temporary) will always be disappointing because it can’t ignite an eternal perspective. The more desperate I get for hope, the more I pursue and surrender to Jesus.

To desire the life and light of God, we must be willing to continually behold and pursue His majestic holiness. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is called repentance. It’s an overwhelming desire and ongoing search for God’s deliverance, healing, and holiness. It’s a never-ending inner cry for God to bring justice through mercy, to fix us with His compassion, to free us from our heart’s corruption. It’s to throw overboard every thought, feeling, desire, activity, and possession that in anyway hinders our pursuit of the presence and power of the risen Jesus.

It’s hard to pursue something that you don’t believe is possible. If you’re not aggressively and passionately pursuing the kingdom of God and His righteousness as your first priority, perhaps you don’t really believe the promises of Scripture.

“Love never fails.” It even extends to enemies. Ex-love is a misnomer. Focus on and care about your neighbor the way you focus on and care about yourself.

To gain
From your pain
Let it make you
Ever desperate
For God.

God always hears
A human heart-cry
Even when people deny
That He exists.

Christians are called
To soar in God’s glory
Not to sink
In their worry.

If you continually flirt
With moral danger,
You’ll make yourself
A stranger
To God.

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Christianity goes beyond privacy

There’s nowhere to hide
When you reside
And continually abide
In Christ.
The rising tide
Of His presence
Reveals all secrets.

A heart exposed
To the light
Of Christ
Often complains
That His light
Is too bight
And thus retreats
Back into the night
To keep its secrets
Out of sight.

Awe causes the human heart to open like a flower–to abandon privacy for the radiant light of God’s Son. However, as humans, we try to hide our corruption behind what we call “the right of privacy.” That concept was conceived when the first humans tried to hide from God because they feared His light.

Privacy says “keep out”–community says “welcome in.” Clinging to the right of privacy often creates deep loneliness and the fear of being discovered.

When we hide something, we feel compelled to do whatever it takes to keep it hidden and cover up becomes more important than truth. Secret keeping is hard work. Surrendering all to God is power.

Now is the time for intimate holy-awe moments. Every instant is a precious divine gift. The ancient Greeks called it “kairos,” which means the “opportune time.” We need to look beyond “chronos” which is the mere passing of time–the calendar that hangs over our head and coerces us to conform to its chronological commands. Now is the prime time (the “kairos”) to cultivate our heart to be an environment full of aha and awe, overflowing with openness to present moment revelation and adoration–living a life that radiates with God’s Spirit.

Jesus came as Emmanuel–the God-man–so we can live beyond the control of time in a holy now of intimacy with Him that doesn’t fade or pass away. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Stringing together a day full of holy-awe moments will set you free from the prison of privacy.

Jesus puts out a welcome sign, not a private sign. When we leave our isolation, we can embrace true transformation. We can shift from being driven by desires to being compelled by compassion. We can set aside self-seeking and embrace service to others. When we truly surrender to God, we lose our privacy.

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