Steve Simms's Blog, page 172

Living like God is real

The witness of God in your conscience is real. Following it will free you from the ravages of guilt. If you don’t overcome your own wrongful inclinations, you’ll live as their prisoner.

Until God appears in your heart, it’s easy to overlook Him everywhere else. To ignore or disobey the stirrings of God in your heart is to jump overboard in the middle of the ocean.

Let the living Jesus calm the agitations of your mind and heart. Nothing can really teach you about the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ but to personally experience and daily surrender to Him. The inner demonstrations of Jesus Christ, in human hearts that wait for Him, is absolutely, utterly amazing!

To make room for Jesus: Open your heart. Overcome your wrong desires. Obey Him. Embrace humility. Love everyone. Apologize quickly. If Jesus isn’t your friend, your teacher, your guide, your counselor, your Lord, do you really have a relationship with Him?

Are sermons wasted time? Until we begin to live up to what we already know about Jesus, it does little good to know more.

The race to apologize has few winners. Most people stall until they drop out. The raging power of pride is a poor guide for life.

Whatever a people trust in and look to for support is their God. The only way to seek Jesus is to seek Jesus first. If He’s not first, we’ll be distracted by other things. The fruit of the Spirit only grows in tender-hearted people. (Galatians 5:22.)

Bloody behaviors are far too common when people rely on outward weapons instead of spiritual ones. Trusting the living Jesus to protect you is more powerful than trusting physical weapons.

If you’ve not been taught by the Spirit,
You’ve missed out on the most important teaching
And still need to hear it.

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Bubbles are distracting (and empty, too)

Bubble Voices
If you let
What's said from without
Make you doubt
What your conscience
Says within you,
It will reroute
Your life
Downhill.

Denial is an ongoing series of bubbles (designed to hide the truth). Reality continually pops them.

What we call reality is made up of electrons temporarily spinning around mostly empty space (like a bubble). They disguise themselves as something solid.

Pleasure is based on bubbles that continually burst. Joy is produced by the Spirit of Christ living within you. It never ends.

Trying to find yourself is like trying to catch and keep a bubble in your hands. It’s exhausting and frustrating, but losing yourself is service to others releases joy.

If you don’t like someone’s skin color, take it up with God. That’s a bubble that they had nothing to do with.

Church too often bubble wraps the idea of total commitment to the living Jesus, but Christ wants to burst your religious bubbles! The Bible mixed with prideful boasting creates bubbles that eventually burst.

We often don’t realize
That to choose
What defies
The will of God
Has consequences.

Life is full
Of bubble and burst,
The best and the worst.
Put your hope
In Jesus first!

Lighten your load.
Bring your burdens
To the light.
Receive fresh insight
And delight.

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Christian unbelief in the resurrection of Jesus

Religious ceremony
Without living testimony
Is like eating
Plain macaroni.

A lack of believe that Jesus is alive, present, and speaking to them, causes Christians to rely on religion, ceremony, and sermons. Pure water and pure thoughts are more refreshing than murky ones.

Worship that keeps Jesus at a distance doesn’t get to know His daily presence and companionship. If you won’t willingly make room for the living Jesus in your life, He won’t make you let Him in.

Do nothing church that trains people to do nothing but listen has no power. “Faith without works is dead.” Dead religion, crusty ceremony without living testimony, is not what Jesus is about!

Your conscience is a candle that carries the inner light of God. Refuse to snuff it out. God frequently makes me conscience of my conscious and shows me things I don’t really want to know.

The person who forgives first wins the battle to overcome bitterness. People don’t like to listen to angry, agitated people. They’ll hear you better if you’re calm and kind. Live like Jesus is risen and present in all you think, say, and do.

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It’s insightful to compare slavery and abortion

Abortion today carries on much of the legacy of American slavery, claiming complete rights over other human lives. With a closer look, slavery and abortion look like cruel twins (fraternal, not identical), but many people find the similarities between slavery and abortion, too uncomfortable to talk about. Still, every argument for the “right to abortion” can be found in the historical arguments used to justify the “right to own slaves.”

Slaveholders and abortion supports had (have) little tolerance for people who disagree with their position. Slavery said that the Free States in America had no right to an opinion on slavery. Abortion says men have no right to an opinion on abortion.

Slavery and abortion don’t want people who disagree with their practices to have the freedom of speech. Slaveholders claimed that other people had no right to care about their victims. Abortion supporters make the same claim.

Both slavery and abortion claim that nobody has a right to criticize their cruelty. They claim that what they do is a private matter. Slavery said that Black lives didn’t matter. Abortion says that prenatal lives don’t matter.

Both slavery and abortion claim to have the right to cruelly disrespect and abuse certain human lives. They both declare that some human life shouldn’t have legal protection.

Slavery and abortion both attacked their opponents as “single issue voters.” They both continually attempt to reduce their victims to a subhuman status.

Both slavery and abortion deny any rights to their victims based on the idea of possession or ownership. Because prenatal human lives and slaves are not free to express the the abuse of their life, they have no recourse.

It was said, slaves wouldn’t have a good enough quality of life to justify their freedom. Today, many justify abortion with that approach.

Both slavery and abortion have used Supreme Court decisions to try to try justify their cruelty. Also, many churches and denominations have strongly supported both slavery and abortion.

Slavery appealed to the junk science that “some humans are less evolved than others are.” Abortion appeals to to the false idea that “conception doesn’t begin life.”

When abolitionists began to meddle with slavery, slaveholders cried: “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do with my propery.” When the US tried to make laws against slavery, slaveholders said: “My property, my choice.” History repeats itself. Today the cry is “My body, my choice.”

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Freedom of speech includes the fuller story of American history

We can displace
The idea of race
By taking time
To erase
The lines
That divide us.

There are many ways that the human race can be divided into categories. Skin color may be the most illogical one.

Freedom of speech includes the right to talk about the cruelty and brutality of slavery and Jim Crow even though hard hearts don’t want to hear about it. Regardless of our skin color, it would be good if all Americans knew the fuller story of our American history.

The history of slavery is an example of how people can fool themselves into to thinking that barbaric cruelty and brutality are justifiable. To heal our nation’s racial wounds we need a more open understanding of our history. This can help.

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When temptation wins, you lose.

A good person never gives in to temptation. I don’t think there’s anybody on the planet who lives that way.

When temptation wins, you lose. Any temptation you don’t overcome, overcomes you.

Wrongful desire is temptation. It’s not identification. Desire doesn’t make you a thief or a cheater. Behavior does.

Some inclinations come from free will; some from the appeal of evil; and some from God. It’s important to recognize the difference.

Temptations loudly proclaim pleasure and partying while hiding the misery they’re carrying. People who resist temptations are often ridiculed by those who wallow in them, but surrendering to temptation is nothing to boast about.

When impure thoughts are allowed to linger in your mind, they work on establishing permanent residence there. The more you surrender to tempting desires, the more control they gain over your life. If you let a temptation entertain you, you’ll enjoy it a short while, but eventually it will slam you into the ground.

If you can’t state your point without unkindness, anger, or profanity, there’s a good chance you’re feeling insecure about it. If that’s the case, perhaps humility can help.

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If the Son is risen, let’s meet to let Him lead us!

Attending a Sunday show
About Jesus
Isn’t the same
As gathering
To go with His flow.

Water that doesn’t flow becomes stagnant and unpleasant. So do Christians who don’t let Jesus continually flow thru their heart.

If church belongs to Jesus, why don’t we ever let Him take direct control of a worship service? When we’re unwilling to let Jesus take full and direct control of a church service, we act like we don’t completely believe that He’s alive and present. To not give the living Jesus the opportunity to take control of a church service is to doubt (and/or fear) His resurrection.

If Jesus is really alive, the choice for church isn’t human control or chaos. The choice is human control or Christ’s control.

Christians say that church belongs to Christ, but we want it programed and controlled to fit our comfort zone. To be a Christ-follower is to be frequently inconvenienced by the living Jesus and continually surprised by His joy!

Lord Jesus, the Hope of Glory living within me, help me humbly walk in Your victory.

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Do prenatal human lives matter?

Confusing question:
If prenatal human life doesn’t matter, why do doctors offer prenatal care?

Follow the science:
Prenatal human life obviously begins at conception.

Connectivity:
Lack of respect and compassion for prenatal human life devalues all human life.

Perspective:
There is much focus on the legality of abortion, but very little focus on the ethics of abortion.

Legality or ethics:
Just because it’s legal to kill a prenatal human life doesn’t make it morally right.

Reproductive rights?
Taking the life of a prenatal baby is not “reproductive” or “right.”

An observation, not an opinion:
The legal attempt to stop prenatal cruelty is being called cruel.

Cruelty free?
America resists cruelty to animals but embraces prenatal cruelty.

Thought:
When a pet’s inconvenient, most people don’t just kill it. Surely a prenatal human life deserves as much respect as a pet.

Something else to ponder:
If somebody killed their pet for its inconvenience, would the words, “My pet, my choice?” justify it?

Logic:
Just because prenatal human lives are powerless and inconvenient doesn’t mean that they should be disposable.

An irrational thought:
“The value of a prenatal life depends on the choice of the mother to be.”

Two unpopular mandates that save lives:
1) A mask mandate; and
2) A no-prenatal-cruelty mandate.

The Constitution and human life:
The Bill of Rights didn’t include enslaved Black lives and in 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson supported active, Jim Crow racism against Black lives. In 1973, Roe v. Wade excluded prenatal human lives from constitutional protection.

Confusion:
Some people say that only a woman has a right to have an opinion about abortion, but nowadays a man can declare himself to be a woman.

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Let life drive you to think. Your mind doesn’t belong in a parking garage.

If you don’t
Verify,
It’s easy
To believe
A lie and
Be deceived.

Certainty
Without proof
Remains aloof
From truth.

Truth isn’t your birthright.
It must be sought,
Not inherited
From your culture.

Before you declare
An assumption,
Make sure that it’s not
Mere presumption.

Before you believe somebody, examine their character, their motives, and their claims. If they don’t align with truth and love, run. You prove that love is real, not by words or arguments, but by demonstrating it in how you live.

The proof of beauty is in its perception, not in logic. There’s no scientific proof for love, yet almost everyone believes in it, because it is proven in other ways.

A lack of proof doesn’t disprove anything, but it should at least make you question it. Some people try to hide truth behind a show, but if you watch carefully, they eventually show who they are.

Members of the human race find it easy to follow their opinions, feelings, and desires, but difficult to follow their conscience. We’re easily deceived. Mistakes are proof that you’re not always right.

Let life drive you to think. Your mind doesn’t belong in a parking garage. The next time you have a harmful emotion or desire, find the thought process that is triggering it and begin to detach from it.

The thing we humans trust in the most is invisible and beyond scientific proof–our own consciousness.

Pride makes a disagreeable proof hard to admit. Don’t mock people who are sincerely seeking truth.

People who skip out on truth are never able to skip along with innocent joy. A snicker weaponizes laughter and robs it of true joy.

To believe
Without proof
Can blow the roof
Off of truth.

A culture clone,
Although surrounded
By copy cat people,
Will still feel alone.

Be careful who you believe. Jesus said: “Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.” Deception isn’t rare!

The living Jesus leaves fingerprints in human hearts. The more I listen to and obey Jesus, the more He proves Himself to me. History (and the present day) is full of people with miraculous testimonies about how the living Jesus has worked in their life.

Sermonitis, like arthritis, can cause Christians to become immobilized. Jesus said, “Take up your bed and walk.” He didn’t say, “Take a seat and listen.” If you want people to believe in Jesus, help them experience Him. 

I’ve always found the idea that nothing plus time produced everything, to be irrational. It makes no sense to me.

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Whew! Spontaneous Christianity’s amazing, y’all!

My wife and I just had a married couple, who really love Jesus, over for dinner and we saw the Spirit lead. We ate, shared testimonies, laughed, prayed, danced, took communion, prayed more, laughed more, repeatedly saw the gifts of the Spirit in action, and basked in the fruit of the Spirit, for 5 hours! It was awesome.

For almost two years now, my wife and I have been calling another couple every Sunday morning. We share testimonies, Scriptures, laugh, pray, open our hearts to each other, and have fun enjoying the fruit and gifts of the Spirit for an hour or more. All of that happens with no arguing or conflict as we humbly and joyfully celebrate the unity of the Spirit.

“The kingdom of God is at hand,” means you have the opportunity to be led by the Spirit anytime and anyplace (if you so choose). That makes me wonder why the typical sermon seems to be loaded down with over analysis, over preparation, over rehearsal, and loss of spontaneity when innocent spontaneity opens the door for the Holy Spirit to begin to truly take the lead.

Rigidity resists the Holy Spirit, but godly spontaneity freely goes with the Spirit’s flow. The definition of boredom is the absence of spontaneity. Church services too often stick religiously to that definition.

When Christians program, formalize, and systematize “worship,” we stifle the spontaneity of the Spirit. Biblical spirituality is spontaneous and unprogrammed, flowing like rivers of living water from deep within you. (John 7:38.)

To be Spirit-led you need to get out of your head and begin to spontaneously respond to what God’s saying in your heart. Being led by analysis, opinions, desires, or feelings is not being led by the Spirit. To be led by the Spirit is to surrender any control that you think you have, to the living God.

If you aren’t continually attentive and obedient to Christ in you, you won’t be able to be consistently led by the Spirit. To be led by the Spirit, we must embrace the humility and lowly position of a little child. (Matthew 18:3-4.) Since Jesus said to be like a little child, perhaps we should set aside religious formality and play along with the children’s sermon.

When the Spirit-leads you experience “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” When was the last time you know for sure you were led by the Spirit? (Romans 8:14.)

I enjoy listening to Jesus, both when He makes the Bible come alive and when He speaks directly to my heart. It’s even more fun when I do it with friends who love & obey Jesus.

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