Steve Simms's Blog, page 156

Jesus says “Go” & we need to scatter like exiles

1 Peter 1;1 refers to God’s “scattered” people and calls them “exiles:”

The traditional way of doing church has been very good at gathering, but very poor at scattering. We gather with people who look like us instead of scattering as exiles among people who look different than we do.

In fact, to get His people to scatter, God has often had to allow persecution. Once when I was pondering traditional church, these words came to my mind: “The church is the only educational institution in the world that never graduates anybody.” We gather, but we often resist scattering and keep people coming back to the same group of people and listening to talks about Christianity 101 all their lives. By doing so, we ignore Jesus’ command to, “Go into all the world . . .” Jesus says “Go” and we need to scatter like exiles among people who are different than we are.

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My fun thoughts entertain without shame

I choose fun thoughts
That entertain
And inspire me
Without producing
Guilt or shame.

Perspective is powerful. You can develop a perspective that sees life as encouraging or one that sees life as distressing. Having fun can be as simple as a change in perspective.

When your work feels like play you have fun all day! When play becomes competitive, joy becomes confined to defeating opponents.

When people want to “have fun” they usually look for outward distractions, but “being joyful” is something that happens in the heart. When you embrace wholesome silliness, fun will sneak up on you.

Troubling thoughts, emotions, and desires disrupt our fun. Instead of looking for joy, we seek to be distracted and medicated.

For me, trying to control my mind and focus my thoughts on hope and encouragement is more fun and challenging than playing a game app. I can do it anyplace, anytime, and under any circumstances.

Too many Christians settle for “a little fun” when Jesus wants to fill them within with “loads of joy.” I’ve never found scripted and programmed Christianity to be very fulfilling.

Focusing on the living Jesus fills my daily life with fun–delight, adventure, and meaning–not just empty entertainment. Praying is so fun! I love to experience the presence of the living Jesus–to share my heart with Him and to listen to His voice.

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Jesus–He wrote us some letters!

When I awoke this morning, thoughts and images of Jesus as pictured in Revelation 1 were going through my mind. I was thinking about and picturing the risen and glorified Jesus standing in the midst of 7 golden lampstands and holding 7 stars in His right hand.

Since John who saw that revelation of Jesus while he was exiled on the island of Patmos (for his Christian testimony) was Jewish, I was picturing the 7 lampstands as a menorah. A menorah is 7 golden lampstands that all branch out from a single base. It was part of the holiest furniture in the ancient Hebrew tabernacle and later in the temple.

Jesus tells John the “mystery” of the stars and lampstands. He says that the 7 stars are the messengers (angeloi in Greek which can be translated as messengers or angels) of the 7 assemblies and the 7 lampstands are the assemblies (ekklēsiōn in Greek).

As I lay in bed, I kept wondering about the 7 angeloi (messengers) “of” the assemblies. It doesn’t say that they were messengers (or angels) “to” the assemblies, but “of” the assemblies. They were part of the assemblies. (Later I checked about 25 translations and they all said “of” instead of “to.”)

As I thought about the 7 stars and messengers, I thought about the star of Bethlehem. It was a messenger of Jesus, a sign that lighted the way to Him and was followed by the wise men from the East. It proclaimed the birth of Jesus and the presence of the body of Christ. A messenger “to” is a delivery person, but a messenger “of” is a sign. What is the messenger (sign) of an assembly of the body of Christ?

A star is a heavenly light. Jesus had told His followers, “You (plural as in y’all or you guys) are the light of the world.” He also told them that He would build his ekklesia (assembly in English). An ekklesia was the open, interactive governing body of an ancient Greek city-state. Jesus applied ekklesia to a gathering or assembly of members of His body. Perhaps the messenger of (not “to”) an assembly of the body of Christ is the light that shines from their coming together with Christ in their midst.

Although each of the 7 letters in chapters 2 and 3 are addressed “to the messenger of the assembly” in a particular city, when you read each letter it’s obvious that it is being sent to a group of people, not to an individual person or angel. The letters critique how effective each assembly of the body of Christ has been as a messenger or sign or light to the world–how well they have shined like a star to announce and demonstrate the presence of the risen Jesus in their midst.

What would Jesus say to evaluate how well the light of the world shines out of the assembling of the body of Christ in your city? What messages is it sending out?

Training every Christian needs!

Every Christian needs to be trained to:

Put and keep Jesus first!Get and stay passionately in love with Jesus!Keep their promises.Encourage and serve other people.Pray out loud with other people.Be kind to everyone.Hang out with the living Jesus every day.Speak the truth in love.Refuse to compromise with the world or become lukewarm.Read the Bible daily with an open heart.Hear and obey Jesus’ voice.Show mercy to and forgive everyone.Embrace humility.Share their salvation testimony.Bring every thought captive to Jesus.Trust Jesus and His word instead of their feelings.Tell others about Jesus.Make disciples.Honor “the lease of these.”Speak out and stand up for those who are being mistreated.Bless and pray for those who curse them. Confess their sins.Ask God and people for forgiveness.Quickly repent and turn away from all wrongful thoughts and actions.Always be honest.Consider others better than themselves.Cultivate a continual inner flow of the fruit of the Spirit.Operate in the gifts of the Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit convict them and show them where they’re off track.(Feel free to add in the comments other things Christians need to be trained to do.)

Following and obeying the risen Jesus requires rigorous training. It’s time that churches rise to the occasion and begin to make disciples instead of passive sermon-hearers.

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The SHOUTING church piano

There’s so much untapped potential in the saints sitting silently in church. If we begin to unleash it, we’ll change the world like the first Christians did!

A church piano SHOUTS: “Every human key, get unstuck and begin to obey the touch of the Pianist, blending together to make His music!” Jesus wants to play all the piano keys in the body of Christ together, not to single out one key and silence the rest.

The world’s full of one-working-key pianos called churches. We need expressions of the body of Christ that let all the keys make music together. We need to let the living Jesus play His piano, His assembled body, when we gather in His name.

Limiting a church service to one speaker is like limiting a keyboard to one note, but one single demonstration of Jesus and His love is worth many thousands of religious explanations. Hearing lectures about a great pianist should never be a substitute for experiencing his music with an open heart. The same for lectures about Jesus!

If keys won’t respond to a pianist, there’s no music. If church attendees won’t respond to Jesus, His Spirit is quenched. When Christians won’t let the risen Jesus take direct control of a church meeting, it looks like we don’t really believe that He’s alive.

As Christians, we line up, side by side (like piano keys), but seldom let the living Jesus, the Great Pianist, prompt us to make His music together. The body parts in a meeting of Christ’s body have been reduced to nothing more than one speaker and many passive listeners.

It’s time to move beyond church services that only have one person who speaks. I believe that Jesus wants to play all the keys on His piano and not have them all keep quiet while one key dominates. One key can never play a melody. One person preaching can never reveal the body of Christ.

A church piano shows what Jesus wants to do. He wants to make beautiful music by prompting each person present with a gentle touch of His finger. Christians, it’s church piano time! Begin to come together like piano keys and let the living Jesus perform His concert thru His assembled body.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus is present when we gather in His name. It’s time that we make room on the church program for His presentation. If Christians meet to tell each other about their experiences with Jesus, they begin to experience Him again, together as a group.

When Christians won’t let the risen Jesus take direct control of a church meeting, it looks like we don’t believe He’s alive. Few church services give the living Jesus any room to actively maneuver, but instead set Him aside.

Institutional Christianity has organized and controlled so tightly that it has stifled experiential Christianity. The best presenter I’ve ever heard speak is the living Jesus. He goes straight for the heart. Jesus, when we gather as Your body, may we lay aside our programs and let You be our Head–our Director, our Conductor, our Pianist, and our Choreographer.

When Christians are assembled to all hear Jesus and each one do what He says, the body of Christ goes into action. Christianity is a journey. If we’re not daily going forward spiritually, grace is our boarding pass to take off with Jesus and obey His promptings.

The Lord is my pastor.
Jesus leads me.
He restores my soul
And makes me glad!

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Filter to find pure happiness

You’ll be much happier if you train yourself to be a negativity filter instead of a negativity sponge. Unfiltered thoughts, feelings, and desires deliver much daily deception and despair.

An unfiltered mind is a stormy mind. If you don’t filter what you allow into your mind, your brain will be polluted and stained and desperately need to be washed clean.

The more you activate the spam filter of your conscience, the less mess you’ll allow to flow thru your mind. When we tone down our conscience, life offers us many opportunities for self-deception.

Life goes better when you filter your thoughts, feelings, and desires by resisting, refuting, rejecting, and removing the impure ones. Most of our problems are caused by our failure to frequently filter our feelings, thoughts, and desires. A person with a weak inner filter lives with much emotional turmoil.

Your behavior flows from your stream of consciousness–the thoughts, feelings, and desires that you focus on. You have the ability to purify your stream of consciousness by filtering out your unclean thoughts, feelings, and desires.

Discernment is the ability to filter craving from certitude, assumption from actuality, temptation from truth, feeling from fact. Much of what we call emotional overload is under using our inner filter. Our lack of discernment creates much of our distress.

The most important filter in your life isn’t an air filter or a water filter. It’s your conscience! To filter out harmful media, sensitize your conscience and refuse to watch, read, or listen to anything that violates it.

All people choose to turn their filter off and to think and do evil at various times and in various ways. See Romans 3:23. Instead, activate your mental and emotional spam filter.

Seek to filter down everything in your heart to the fruit of the Holy Spirit. See Galatians 5:22. When we don’t show love and kindness, we’re way off track. See 1 Corinthians 13.

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Eyesight or insight

I need more than eyesight. I’m continually searching for insight. By being inquisitive about life, I find much to inspire me and fill me with joy.

I’m continually inquisitive about the Bible. I’ve been reading it daily for decades and still want to know more about it. To me the Bible is a love letter from the living God. It makes my heart dance.

I don’t understand how the internet works, but that doesn’t stop me from interacting with it. The same with the Bible.

The prophets and many other of the Bible writers state that they wrote what was revealed to them by God. They often didn’t understand what they wrote, but they felt inspired by God to write it. When I read their writings something amazing happens inside of me. I am filled with inspiration and closeness to God. I can’t explain it, but it happens. The words burn in my heart.

I avoid the “biblical inerrancy” debate. It’s sometimes difficult to tell what is intentional allegory in the Bible and what is historical. I believe the Bible, not because of some doctrine, but because it works in my heart when I read it. It changes me from the inside out. It makes Jesus come alive to me.

World history is full of books by powerful Christ-followers who deeply loved Jesus. I devour as many of those books as I can find.

If going to church hasn’t ignited spiritual fireworks in your heart, ask the living Jesus to ignite them for you. He will!!! If a sermon doesn’t make you inquisitive about how you can get to know Jesus better, it hasn’t done its job.

Jesus, You keep my heart on fire with love and adoration for You! Day and night, I hunger and thirst for more of Your presence.

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Heart experience or religion of the mind?

To believe in Jesus involves more than having your mind persuaded by reason. It’s to have your heart convinced by His presence. If your heart catches sight of the living Jesus as He stands before the eyes of your spirit, you’ll never be the same.

The living Jesus is the world’s bright heart-light. Opening yourself to His ongoing presence will dispel the dark night within you.

Jesus will help you according to your willingness to be helped. If you will dare to humbly look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith will engrave His face on your heart.

When we try to use human logic to communicate Christianity, we twist it from a heart experience to a religion of the mind. Natural knowledge can’t explain how the invisible Jesus can grasp a heart and revolutionize a person’s life from the inside out.

Jesus didn’t come to step on your toes or to be analyzed by your mind. He came to connect with and renew your heart. Pride laminates the human heart with a hardness that keeps it from connecting with God.

In a moment a revolution happened inside me. The invisible Jesus turned over my tables and tossed out my tormentors. Jesus makes me aware of His living and working within me as if I saw and heard Him with my physical eyes and ears.

The Bible says the message of the cross is foolishness to nonbelievers–power to believers. Apologetics can’t explain it.

Christianity isn’t demonstrated by logic and reasoning. It’s demonstrated when God’s love is put into ongoing action. The working of the eye has been explained by science but the vision of the heart that beholds Jesus will always baffle the brain.

When the love of God is being poured into your heart, it overflows to everybody you meet. See Romans 5:5.

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What good’s an unapplied sermon?

Christians are taught that simply listening to a sermon is good, yet continually hearing truth but not doing it is a bad thing. Sermons can be passively heard but discipleship requires actively doing what we’ve heard.

Sermon-hearing
Without sermon-doing
Has been the undoing
Of Christianity.

Saying “Good sermon,” is a poor response to a sermon. Applying what was said as you live your day-to-day life is a good response.

Christianity, as mere Sunday morning ceremonies that are not applied to daily life, is Jesus Christ denied. Jesus said, “Follow Me,” not a method or a program or a religious organization.

Grace
Doesn’t replace
Jesus’ call
To “Follow Me.”
Discipleship matters!

The New Testament overflows with the idea of self-denial and surrender to God. The concept of self-defense is hard to find there.

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Is happiness hiding in your heart?

Ponder
With wonder
And discover
How to uncover
Happiness that’s hidden
In your heart.

When we blame other people for our problems, we refuse to learn from our mistakes. It’s hard to discover the truth about something if you think you already know it. Find the happiness withing you!

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