Steve Simms's Blog, page 133
July 11, 2022
Refuse to get comfortable in the Dead Sea.
Jesus doesn’t put the Dead Sea into His followers. Instead, He releases ongoing inner rivers of living water. Those invisible rivers are the most important rivers on the planet.
Christ-followers are now God’s temple. The rivers that Ezekiel writes about (in Ezekiel 47:1-2) are supposed to be flowing from within our innermost being and out into the world around us.
Inner “rivers of living water” are outflowings of the presence of the risen Jesus as the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. They will freely flow from any Christ-follower who determines not to hold them back consciously or unconsciously and courageously refuses to quench the Holy Spirit’s promptings no matter what circumstances, culture, desire, fear, or tradition demand. All we need to do is to truly and fully and persistently “let go and let God”–let Him freely flow in and through us all day long.
True Christianity isn’t how much theology you know. It’s how freely you allow Jesus and His inner rivers to flow in and through you. Too many Christians want to be “in the know” instead of “in Jesus’ flow.” It’s time we get in, stay in, and overflow with the Holy Spirit’s supernatural inner flow. Refuse to settle in and get comfortable in the Dead Sea!
[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-32273" />Photo by Toa Heftiba u015einca on Pexels.com
July 10, 2022
It’s easy to overlook inner miracles
When people don’t see God working around them, it’s because they’ve ignored or denied God’s working within them. Begin to notice the miracles happening in your own heart as God lovingly tries to steer you toward Himself and away from self-destruction.
Free will is either a myth or a miracle. If you truly have the ability to make choices, that’s supernatural, not programming. Free will demonstrates that you can make choices that aren’t determined by the physiological make-up of your brain. To allow yourself to have no sense of the miraculous is to miss out on much wonder, awe, and inspiration.
A physical miracle can get your attention, but a miraculous change in your heart is greater because it will turn your life around. If you’re stuck in a damaging desire, a tormenting thought, a fearful feeling, or a bad behavior you need an inner miracle. In humility, kindness, and simplicity we often encounter the miraculous.
Aha! A great idea isn’t always the result of a rational process. Often, it’s an inner miracle of supernatural revelation. Hope when things look bad, faith when life feels like it’s falling apart, peace in an emotional storm–those are inner miracles! Perhaps people who say they have no time for the miraculous neglect to notice that being aware of time is itself miraculous because nature itself isn’t conscious of time.
If it wasn’t for an undeserved inner strength that comes to assist my own effort and ability, I would have little mental health. In a moment (at age 19) I was forever changed as I heard someone describe the amazing way Jesus had changed him. Reading the Bible with an open heart helps me see miracles in history, but also the miracles happening around me and within me.
Laws and commandments can change behavior, but they can’t change a human heart. It takes the miracle of caring and compassion to do that. Science can explain much about how nature works, but it’s a mystery how nature works to inspire and refresh the human heart.
When Christianity ignores the direct and ongoing working of God in human hearts, it becomes just another religious philosophy. To be a Christian is to be miraculously restored to a relationship with the Creator thru the blood of Christ and empowered to follow and obey Him.
Much that we consider
To be mundane
Because it’s familiar
Is miraculous.
July 9, 2022
Lukewarm isn’t good . . .
Half-hearted Christianity is full-scale deception. “Lukewarm” isn’t good. Anything that shuts your heart down toward Jesus is unchristian.
Wholehearted Christians stir things up with their passion for Christ. Many church attendees are easily freaked out by a wholehearted Christian. Sports teams never try to tone down the enthusiasm of their fans–but churches seem to prefer toned down attendees.
When Christians are half-hearted, casual religion replaces rigorous discipleship. Half-hearted church attendance is meaningless. Only wholehearted devotion to Christ will fill the hole in your heart.
If Christianity makes you half-hearted and complacent, you’ve somehow overlooked God’s grace. True Christianity is nothing less than loving, submitting to, and obeying Jesus wholeheartedly, but church trains people to be passive spectators and rarely makes room for wholehearted enthusiasts!
[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-32254" />Photo by Tamas Marton onSome of my frequent God-assignments
Some of my most frequent God-assignments are:
Apologize,Be kind to people who are unkind to me,Read the Bible and let it touch my heart,Pray, worship, and exercise spiritual gifts with my wife.“Consider others better than yourself.”Meet with other people to experience Jesus together,Proclaim and demonstrate Jesus in creative ways,Pray with and for other people,Write and share (on my blog & social media) what God puts on my heart,Obey an inner prompting.Connect-heart to heart with the people God puts in front of me,Speak the truth in love.Use illusions (“magic tricks”) as an object lesson to teach spiritual truths,Pour out my heart to God by singing worship songs along with Amazon Alexa,Share my pain and struggles with people who will pray & give me godly advice.Meet with a small group of students at a tech college every week to encourage them to connect more closely with the living Jesus.Pray in tongues.Repeat the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.”Ignore my desires so I can obey Him better.What are some of your frequent God-assignments?
I think the strangest God-assignment I’ve ever had was to carry (often with other people) a full-sized Salvation Army Flag (that proclaims the blood of Jesus and fire of the Holy Spirit) around an inner-city neighbor once a week or more, praying as we walked, for more than a decade.
God-assignments are for everybody (got yours?)
God often whispers, like a gentle breeze in your heart, urging you toward righteousness, however, His inner nudges are frequently unnoticed. When you refuse to complete the assignments that God puts in your heart, you’re rejecting Him as your teacher.
Ask God to give you an assignment and He’ll direct you to an amazing opportunity to show kindness. God’s assignments often seem simple and insignificant, but if you obey them, you’ll experience amazing things. When I obey a God-assignment, I usually experience incredible confirmations and demonstrations of His leading.
When God entrusts you with an assignment and you ignore it, you hinder your relationship with Him. Your self-assignments and your God-assignments seldom match. Without self-denial it’s easy to ignore God’s choices.
Our desires continually try to lead us away from God’s assignments. It takes courage to say no to self and follow God instead.
To embrace God’s assignments, we have to ignore our desires. Then we discover that abandoning self-focus is a key to happiness.
If you’ve ever experienced an inner urging directing you to do good and/or to avoid doing wrong, you’ve heard the voice of God. When you feel an inner urging to be kind to someone, that’s an assignment from the Holy Spirit.
If more people would pursue God-assignments instead of self-assignments, the would be a much better place. When you’re caught up in self-assignments and unaware of God-assignments, beyond all your activity life still seems meaningless.
When Christians gather to let each person do what God assigns them, the meeting is beautifully coordinated by His presence. Instead of gathering as spectators, church could meet that way, and everybody listen to God so that each person could say and/or do what He assigns them.
If God’s not working in your heart, changing and directing it, you’re actively resisting Him and quenching His Spirit. If your heart is more devoted to anyone or to anything than it is to God, you have an idol.
Let the living Jesus hydrate your heart with His inner rivers of living water. Take Jesus to heart. If He’s just in your head, there’s a good chance that your spiritually dead. Distraction and denial don’t overcome guilt. They just hide it for a while. Guilt is overcome by receiving God’s forgiveness.
got your God-assignments?
[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-32238" />Photo by Yan Krukov on Pexels.comJuly 8, 2022
Living on eagle time
–Be an inner eagle–
There are uplifting currents
Hidden in your mind
And undetected in your heart,
Thoughts of hope
And rising streams
Of inner warmth,
That can lift your spirit
And keep it high
Like an eagle
Sailing on the invisible
Updrafts of the sky.
Extend your inner wings wide
And begin to ride
Christ’s healing flow
That will lift you
From the inside,
As you glide
Above your turmoil
And soar to peace
Within.
July 7, 2022
Letting go of religious crutches so you can walk with Jesus
When the risen Jesus is vibrant and living inside of you, you don’t need crutches. Let them go!
It’s not surprising that unbelievers reject the resurrection of Jesus, but it’s shocking that so many Christians still cling to crutches and live like Jesus is still dead. To freely walk empowered by the risen Jesus, Christians need to lay aside their religious crutches.
When Christians depend on religious crutches, instead of on the living Jesus, they can easily stumble into the clutches of deception. Religion can be a tool for connecting with God, but it’s too often a crutch that’s used to replace Him.
Sermons are like crutches. They’re helpful if you’re spiritually hobbled but they’re not the way to Christian maturity and a lifetime of faithful discipleship. (The living Jesus is the way.)
Christians don’t need secondhand explanations about Jesus. We need to experience His presence and directly hear from Him. If you follow a pastor, you’ve missed the point. A pastor should train you to follow Jesus.
If you believe that a pastor can hear from God and understand the Bible, you can, too! Read it and listen to God’s Spirit. Then do what He tells you.
Jesus first! Our political views are crutches that don’t come from Jesus. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
When a sermon
Is finally done
And you remember none
Of it,
What just happened?
A lifetime
Of forgotten sermons
Leaves too many Christians
Empty.
Jesus, come
And walk
With me.
I need more
Than a Sunday
Religious talk.
No matter how much
A person has been sermonized,
He’s coming up short
If he hasn’t realized
And surrendered to
The reality of Jesus
And His inner flow.
A church stage
Can easily become a cage
That makes people dependent
On one man’s sermons.
Instead of listening
To another religious talk,
Christians could
Go for a walk
And pray for
Whoever they meet.
That might be more powerful.
Try it and see.
When you think
You’re done
With your prayer,
There’s a good chance
You’ve barely begun.
Talk Christianity
Is like talk radio.
It’s easy
To tune it out.
Christians are supposed
To overflow with joy,
Not to flood their conversation
With hostility and profanity.
An abortion doesn’t mean that a discarded prenatal life wasn’t valuable, but that it wasn’t valued.
When a life
Isn’t chosen
To go from prenatal
To the cradle,
It’s fatal.
July 6, 2022
Jesus will help you take care of your mind & inflate the value of all human life!
One area where inflation is needed is in the perceived value of all stages of human life. Let’s inflate the value of all human life!
If you don’t operate your computer wisely, it won’t function properly. The same is true for your mind. An undisciplined and poorly managed mind isn’t good for your mental health.
To speak about Jesus
Without seeking Him,
Without experiencing Him,
Without surrendering to Him,
Without obeying Him,
Without being in awe
Of His presence
Is empty words.
Ponder the presence of Jesus and the words of the Bible, until He lives so powerfully in you that you continually reflect His presence.
[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-32192" />Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.comJuly 5, 2022
The unnoticed messages in my unplanned selfie . . .
While I was working on my book, Elephants INspiring The Room, my wife and I stayed for a week in Foley, Alabama (near Gulf Shores). When we headed north to start home, just a few blocks from where we were staying, we saw this elephant that we hadn’t noticed on our way in. I wanted a selfie, so I pulled over, jumped out, and took this picture. It’s now the back cover picture on the book.
When I got back in the car and showed it to my wife, she noticed The Salvation Army truck and building right in front of the elephant. We had just spent 9 1/2 years co-leading a nontraditional church with The Salvation Army in Nashville based on Spirit-led sharing and testimony and I had written a book about our experiences called, Beyond Church–An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible–Ekklesia.
Recently, I was taking a closer look at the pic and noticed several things I hadn’t noticed before. The elephant’s tail is perfectly aligned with my cheek and the picture is aligned with my last four books. To the left of The Salvation Army trailer, there’s a palm tree. To celebrate the arrival of Jesus on Palm Sunday, a crowd of people joyfully welcomed Him with palm branches. That made me think of my book, The Joy Of Early Christianity.
At the far left of the picture there is a white pickup with a black trailer. In the pic, a light pole is separating the two. That reminds me of my book, Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind. It’s my attempt to clarify and to shine God’s healing light on the history of America’s ongoing racial conflicts.
I try to listen to God for the ideas I write about. To the right of my ear is a tree. I try to write from the tree of life, not from my own knowledge, perspective, and opinions. The many short lines that appear to be coming out of the side of my head remind me of the way inspirational ideas flow through my mind.
I just now noticed that the elephant’s leading foot is on a rock. The living, resurrected Jesus Christ is the Rock.
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/pexels-photo-1194408.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/rope-knitting-heart-love-113737.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/pexels-photo-4616753.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/pexels-photo-8617935.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/los-cabos-peace-padilla-i-69389.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/pexels-photo-4497828.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/pexels-photo-4032199.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/pexels-photo-4584553.jpeg){kind=link}