Steve Simms's Blog, page 138

Every day is Holy Spirit Day (Pentecost)

Pentecost was a Jewish feast day,
A religious holiday
Celebrated once a year,
But when God’s Spirit came
Pentecost became a way
Of living every single day
Overflowing from within
With God’s presence and power
While saying and doing
Whatever the Spirit does say.

The supernatural activity of “Christ in you” is much simpler than we imagine. Every day is Holy Spirit Day! Through the Holy Spirit we can endlessly breathe the breath of God and be animated by the life of God.

Christians tend to over-estimate the heroes of the Bible and under-estimate what Jesus wants to do in and through them, but God is no respecter of persons. His doors are now open to “Whosoever will.”

In the Bible, the Holy Spirit was practical. Now it seems that we mostly limit Him to the theological.

Pentecost is more than a historical, religious day to celebrate and remember and it’s more than a mere mindset. It’s a transformed heart passionately set on daily following and obeying the omnipresent, resurrected Jesus and endlessly overflowing with the power and desire to do so!

The Bible tells Christians to “Quench not the Spirit.” That means that God’s Spirit is going to live and work in us incessantly if we won’t hinder Him. Now that’s a great awakening–letting the Spirit lead and guide us unhindered by our self-will.

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Do more than “only imagine” Jesus–experience Him daily!

Christ-followers can do much more than “only imagine” Jesus’ presence. We can experience His presence throughout the day!

Christians like to quote half a verse: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Unfortunately, they usually leave out the last part of that verse: “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.”

If you’re a Christian and are unaware of Christ’s presence, guess who hid from the Spirit’s revelation? You got rigid and you did!

I think we humans often over-expect when it comes to God’s voice and His presence, like Elijah did in the cave. He expected to hear God’s voice in the earthquake, wind, and fire, but he didn’t. Then he “heard” the “still, small voice” in his heart. I’ve found that my awareness of God comes most when I’m quiet and trying to notice God’s “voice” and activity within me instead of outside of me.

Cold hearts filled with competition, alienation, and anger create most of humanity’s problems. Don’t let your heart be one of them! Christ’s compassion in a human heart is like water to a sponge, without it the heart gets hard and brittle.

Humans look alike–nose, arms, ears, and legs–it’s easy to recognize a fellow human. Look closely and you’ll see the image of God in them.

Christians are called to be fluid and to flow with the living Jesus, but also to be rigid and to our resist ungodly desires. We all have desires and feelings that we didn’t choose, but we don’t have to let them abuse or use us. We can fight against them and follow the living Jesus instead.

When church is rigid, Christians languish in religious routine, and they can “only imagine” Jesus. When it’s fluid and Spirit-directed they can learn to flow with the living Jesus throughout the day.

Anybody can be rigid
And tell the risen Jesus no.
It takes courage to be fluid
And to go with His caring flow.

To disavow
And not allow
Christ’s compassion in your heart
Is to miss how
Humans can be inwardly connected.

I can do
So much more
Than “only imagine” Jesus.
I can walk by His side
All day long today!

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Body-life: seeing the body of Christ in action (on a sheep farm)

Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a gathered people requires a group openness to the Holy Spirit. We need to surrender our plans, programs, agendas, and control and instead trust the living Jesus to actively lead us and direct us like a conductor directing an orchestra. When we do that people connect heart-to-heart and amazing things begin to happen.

I experienced the presence and leadership of the Holy Spirit on Saturday. Someone invited my wife and I to a gathering of “house churches” that was going to meet on a sheep farm in Galatin, TN. Always ready for a Holy Spirit adventure, we went, not knowing what to expect. About 50 people had brought lawn chairs and had set them in a big circle in the grass. We squeezed our chairs in. The group consisted of Whites, Blacks, and an Asian, from babies to seventy-somethings and everything in between. My wife and I only knew five of the people.

A man stood up and welcomed everybody and said that we were going to meet according to 1 Corinthians 14:26 and that means that anyone present may share what God puts on their heart. After a brief introduction and prayer, he sat down. Then, for the next two or so hours, people began to share as they were prompted by the Spirit. There was an amazing sense of God’s presence and peace (and order) as we looked at each other face to face and saw the love and joy of God manifesting in and through people around the circle. Afterwards we shared communion, a meal, and wonderful koinonia.

Last night my wife and I had a similar meeting with some students at Lincoln Tech School in Nashville. We are blessed to get to meet with them for a meal and Holy Spirit led meeting every Sunday night. When we got home, I picked up a book (written in 1675 by Philip Jacob Spener) that I’ve been reading. about how to reform the church and I saw this: “In addition to our customary services with preaching, other assemblies would also be held in the manner in which Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14:26-40.”

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How to revalue devalued human life

Scads of shootings in America are shouting out that human life has been devalued. It’s time to re-value human life. Our lives matter! Here are some practical ways to do that:

Treat your own life with respect by overcoming self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. Act like your life matters by taking care of your physical and mental health. Avoid watching, reading, or listening to anything that devalues or insults any human life. Focus your attention on the good that people do, not on the bad things they do.Volunteer. Be proactive in serving others.Realize that anger, hostility, and/or hate cause you and others to devalue human life.Acknowledge that the most innocent form of human life shouldn’t be regarded as disposable.Openly renounce the concept of devaluing people because of their skin color. Refuse to devalue people because you disagree with or disapprove of their beliefs and/or behaviors.Frequently connect heart-to-heart with people who think and see things differently than you do.Be kind and respectful to everyone.Treat every member of the human race as a vital part of humanity–the most valuable thing on planet earth.Avoid being careless with your life and other people’s lives. Pay attention to safety for yourself and others.Check out my book about more practical ways to act like human life matters.

Faith isn’t blind belief (Experiential faith matters!)

I believe that many Christians go along with and repeat miracle stories too easily–without adequate evidence and without being fully convinced. They sometimes even use the phrase “Fake it till you make it,” to justify their stance. But is that faith, or is it presumption?

I admire Thomas. I think Thomas was searching for a reason to believe. He was wanting faith, not presumption that was based on his friends’ and fellow disciple’s belief. So, Thomas insisted on evidence. And wow! Jesus gave him the evidence by showing Thomas His wounds and inviting Thomas to touch them. When Thomas experienced the evidence, doubts vanished and Thomas cried out to Jesus, “My Lord and My God!”

The Holy Spirit brought me to unbelief so that I could believe. I thought I was a Christian and on my way to Heaven because I was a faithful, church-attending Presbyterian. Then one day in church this question came to my mind: “If you were born a Hindu, what would you be today?” After thinking about it, I realized that if I had been raised with Hinduism as the only religion I was exposed to, I’d be a Hindu.

Suddenly another question came to my mind: “Why do you think you’re a Christian?” That made me realize that the only reason I thought I was a Christian was because of my upbringing. I was exercising presumption, not faith. As I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t personally believe in Jesus, the Bible, or Christian doctrine, but just assumed I did. However, I realized that I did truly believe in some sort of Creator. At that point I rejected Christianity and asked the Creator to show me the truth.

Two years later I wandered into a Spirit-led Christian meeting on my college campus and had a life-changing encounter with the living Jesus and I’ve never been the same. When I tell people about that encounter it still brings me to tears. Now I’m convinced Jesus is real, not because of what other people say, but because He continually reveals Himself and amazingly demonstrates His reality directly to me.

John tells us to “Test the spirits whether they are from God for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 1:4.) Exercising caution and investigating what people say is wise. The Bereans in the book of Acts, even checked out what Paul said with Scripture before they accepted it. Christians would be healthier spiritually if we all acted like the Bereans.

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Amazing grace & amazing mysticism

Amazing grace and amazing mysticism both demonstrate God’s glory! Let’s embrace them both!

Christian mysticism is to experience direct connection with and communication from the living resurrected Heaven-based Jesus through His real-life presence in the ever-present Holy Spirit. It’s not some kind of nebulous, subjective, or imaginary experience. It is ultimate reality.

Christ-centered mysticism is supernatural power from on high. It changes the phrase “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” from mere theology into the inner objectivity of joyous life-changing actuality.

Too many Christians run from mysticism. They say that such direct encounters with the living Jesus aren’t possible. They keep Jesus at arm’s length by using the academic approach to Him instead of the mystic approach. However, the simplest sincere prayer is a form of mysticism–seeking to connect directly with God.

Yesterday my wife and I were praying on the phone with a couple friend. My wife asked them to ask God to open doors of ministry opportunities for me. Sam began to quote Acts 1:6-7. As he quoted it, he paraphrased it by putting my name in it and saying that I will be a witness in various locations. This morning I went to a blog I read regularly, and the author had started today’s post with the very same Scripture verses.

So, is Christian mysticism real? Is Jesus really living inside of people and communicating with them today? What are the odds against my friend Sam applying a Scripture to my life one evening and a blog writer who doesn’t know Sam using the same Scripture the next day? If that only happened once, you might write it off as coincidence, but things like that happen to me almost every day.

For more than a year, Jesus has been telling me that He isn’t letting me see a lot of fruit from my writing to protect me from my pride. A couple of weeks ago I read about a Christian book written in 1675 that I had never read, “Pia Desideria” (“Heartfelt Desire for a God-Pleasing Reform of the True Evangelical Church.”) by Philip Jacob Spener, so I ordered it. Last night I began to read it and came to these words by Mr. Spener: “If God does not give you the pleasure of seeing the result of your work quickly, perhaps He intends to hide it from you, lest you become too proud of it. Seeds are there, and you may think they are unproductive, but do your part in watering them, and ears will surely sprout and in time become ripe.”

Receive and obey thoughts from God. Resist, refute, and reject thoughts that go against Him.

Tormenting thoughts and desires
Don’t have to be obeyed.
When persistently resisted
They’ll eventually fade.

The living Jesus is the elephant in the room

One day I found
The living Jesus,
Or rather He found me.
He’s the elephant
In the room of Christian religion,
Hidden from the wise,
But revealed to
Humble, broken people.
(Matthew 11:25.)
Here’s how He
Streams in my life!

The active presence of the living Jesus is the elephant in the room in institutional Christianity. It’s time to recognize and focus on Him!

The living Jesus is so powerful, grand, and incredible yet so easily ignored. You can’t follow and obey the risen Jesus if He’s unnoticed. When a church makes listening to and obeying the risen Jesus irrelevant, it makes Him the elephant in the church service.

Once I couldn’t see Jesus anywhere, but now I see Him everywhere I go. Jesus is the elephant in all of life’s rooms. I want to introduce Him to as many people as I can.

When I met Jesus, I wrote, “Jesus is alive!” on the blackboards in my Presbyterian church. After the service, someone had erased them all. I felt like they wanted to keep the risen Jesus as the church’s elephant in the room.

Christian doctrine without demonstration can be dull. Demonstration without solid doctrine can be deceptive. We need both. Regularly attending church can be a first step to discipleship, but many other steps are needed. Romans 8:14.

Many people claim to be citizens of the kingdom of God but lack proof of citizenship–the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22.) As citizens of the kingdom of God, Christ-followers are supposed to be governed by the Lord Jesus, not by their desires, feelings, and opinions.

Proud heads analyze the Gospel, but hungry, humble hearts embrace, demonstrate, and radiate it. Words said from the head might turn a few heads, but words spoken from the heart heal hurting hearts.

Inner livestreaming that will get your face beaming

Dreams
That don’t stream
With hope
Often seem
Farfetched.

Conflict streams chaos and pain. Peace making streams reconciliation and healing. Be a peacemaker.

Pentecost demonstrates that Christianity began with people livestreaming God’s Spirit, not with people being passively downloaded with religious lectures. When people spontaneously move with Jesus–rejoicing, smiling, praying, crying, laughing, singing, testifying, encouraging, exhorting, worshipping, serving–they’re livestreaming His presence.

When you let the risen Jesus freely livestream thru your consciousness, the fruit of the Spirit comes rushing forth. The love and power that flows from Christ never runs dry, but we can ignore it and/or walk away from it.

To start streaming Jesus,
Let God’s Spirit speak
In you,
To you,
And through you.
Then say what He says.

One day Jesus
Came streaming
Into my heart
Overflowing me
With ongoing awe
And inspiration
That’s never dried up!

“Your best life” isn’t good enough. If it was you wouldn’t need for God’s grace to stream in your life. When there’s a lack of the fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit isn’t streaming.

Christians have embraced streaming technology but ignored “streaming theology”–letting the risen Jesus freely stream forth in their heart. No matter how inspired a sermon, lectures about Jesus are nothing like personally streaming His presence.

Love listens with compassion, not necessarily with approval. Unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional approval. Stream God’s love.

When Christ-followers focus on and proclaim the living Jesus Christ, livestreaming His wisdom (Christ’s supernatural revelation and resurrection power), we can tip a small domino in people’s heart that begins the “glory to glory” process of spiritual growth and maturity. Christ wants to powerfully work in people so that they can be inspired to daily strive to release and use His inner energy to tip over the rebellion and darkness that is hindering maturity in themselves and other people.

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Travel with Jesus

Basking in the Son,
Absorbing the warmth
Of His presence,
Hearing the soothing sound
Of His voice in His waves
That flow from within my soul,
Windsurfing to mount up
And soar like an eagle,
Spiritually riding on His living water
As I let His inwardly flowing sea
Lovingly carry me.

When Jesus says,
“Follow Me,”
He’s inviting us
On a Spirit-led journey,
Not an academic pursuit.

Journey with Jesus.
Let Him ride
In your heart
And lead,
Direct, and guide
From the inside.

If your spiritual journey
Ends with a church service,
It’s been aborted.

Christian proclamation
Includes heart-talk,
A flow of unplanned words
From deep within
Demonstrating the presence
And reality of Jesus.

The Bible
Is the guidebook
That helps keep me
On the path
As I journey with Jesus.

If you really want
To follow Jesus,
Apply within!
Then He’ll guide you
Through the process.

Jesus is my travel plan. I want to go where He leads. If you’re not traveling with Jesus, you’re traveling without Him.

Christianity is a life-long spiritual hike, not a weekly religious lecture. “Walk in the Spirit.” Church is a Sunday destination. Christianity is the moment-by-moment journey of following Jesus for the rest of your life.

Let Jesus be your trustworthy tour guide on the journey through life. He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” The inability to fully obey God’s commands creates a desire for His Spirit who then gives us supernatural power to obey God.

If we haven’t learned the Bible by doing what it says, we haven’t really learned much about it. Be a Christ-follower, not just a member of one of the multitudes of divisions in Christianity. Jesus first!

Profanity is void of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Therefore, it’s best if Christ-followers avoid going there.

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Inspiration for the uninspired

Inspiration propels you forward. Excuses tie you down.

When you’re feeling uninspired, your eyes are closed to the amazing things that surround you. People who are uninspired, quickly get tired.

Focusing on problems deletes inspiration. Sincerely searching for solutions restores it.

Having the time of your life isn’t a special event. It’s 24/7/365. How you use time determines whether you’re happy or not. Boredom’s better left undone.

Live intoxicated by life,
Addicted to hope
Invigorated by joy,
Inspired by beauty.

–Burnout–
When feelings and desires
Are allowed to rage
Like uncontained wildfires,
They incinerate
Everything that inspires.
Life gives people free will.
It doesn’t require
That you do
Whatever you desire.

–Uninspired?–
If you let inspiration depart,
Before you even start
You’ll be stuck in dull routine
Like someone with a hard heart
Reluctantly pushing a heavy cart.

Inner voices
That attack your inspiration
Are parasites
Eating up your happiness.

Compromised Christianity produces uninspired Christians.

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