Steve Simms's Blog, page 176

Learn to hear the here-Jesus

Learn to hear the here-Jesus. You don’t need to go anywhere to hear the here-Jesus.

Glory entered my heart,Inexpressible splendorAnd radiance.Then I began to readThe writings ofThe first Christ-followersAnd realized thatThe life transformationThat had happened to themHad happened to me."Christ in you, the hope of glory."As we learn to surrenderTo Jesus' presenceAnd control,His healingWill flow.Too often we meet togetherTo be taughtWhat we oughtTo do,Instead of to get caughtIn the presence of Jesus.Then we forget thatThe here-Jesus
Needs no building
Or program
Or preacher
To speak to you.It's time Christians soughtTo experience Christ's presence And not just to be taught About Him.[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-28171" />Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

House church? Change in church location is insignificant without a change in control

Christian history shows that church has left the ekklesia (the Spirit-led gatherings of the early Christ-followers). Organization gradually overrode the Spirit.

Today, many Christians want to get away from tightly organized, institutional church services and experience more freedom and spontaneity. This desire has helped create a movement toward “house church,” where people meet in private homes rather than in church buildings. However, here’s a fallacy in the “house church” movement: A change in location doesn’t automatically mean setting aside human control. Without a change from human control to Spirit control, the location of a gathering is insignificant.

When many Christians attempt house church, the focus is still on one person teaching or preaching. In other cases, they try to make the meeting more participatory by getting people to share, but they still have one person at the helm, controlling and/or facilitating the gathering. In both of these models a human being (instead of the Holy Spirit) is in direct control of the meeting.

Another problem with house church is that when the focus is on developing relationships between people, we can be distracted from focusing on the living Jesus and His direct leadership of gathering. However, because ekklesia focuses on Jesus and lets Him lead, the people have great relationships with each other.

I’ve attended numerous “house church” gatherings where either 1) people just hang around and fellowship with no real leadership, or 2) a leader controls the meeting. In the first one, there is plenty of freedom, but nothing to pull everyone together. In the second one, although a leader gets everyone’s attention, he or she assumes control of the meeting. Even when the leader tries to facilitate interaction and sharing (with the best of intentions), he is still in control and often directing who shares. This unintentionally limits (and/or shuts down) the Holy Spirit’s freedom to prompt who He wants to speak.

The #2 type meeting also puts people on the spot. It can require them to share when the Holy Spirit may not be telling them to. It can also prevent them from sharing when the Spirit is telling them to. Many house church meetings are a combination of the two.

I was once in a type #2 gathering where people were being called on about a specific topic, but people didn’t feel free to share prayers, spiritual gifts, or other things that Jesus might put on their heart. Afterwards a brother came up to me and shared a vision that he saw during the meeting. It was really powerful and would have taken the meeting to another level. But we missed out on that because of the unintended results of having a facilitator instead of letting the Spirit directly control the meeting by encouraging people to freely obey His promptings.

We need to train Christians to hear and obey the living Jesus when we gather in His name. We need to give them the confidence that Jesus is going to use them in the meeting and the freedom to openly obey His promptings.

A Christ-follower
Is some who
Learns to listen to
And then do
What Jesus says.

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Which lives matter?

Broken hearts matter. They’re the hearts that are the most open to surrendering to the living Jesus.

People who are sad matter. They’re the people who most need our compassion and comfort.

People who continually let themselves be influenced by goodness, matter. They will positively impact the world.

People, who persistently maintain a strong desire to do the right thing, matter. They will have the power to obey their conscience.

People, who frequently show mercy to others, matter. When they need forgiveness, people will have mercy on them.

People, who try to keep their heart pure, matter. They experience supernatural encounters with the living God.

People who bring peace matter. They will be seen as having a special relationship with God.

People, who are persecuted because of doing the right thing, matter. They’re like the the prophets in the Bible who were persecuted.

People, who courageously focus on truth and don’t compromise with deception, matter. They give light to the world.

Which Americans have best lived up to the founding principles of American greatness?

Who should be honored as the greatest Americans? Those who most consistently lived by and applied the American ideals of “liberty and justice for all”!

The greatest Americans:

Boldly stood up for “liberty and justice for all,” not just for a particular group.Believed that ALL people “are created equal” and have rights that must be respected and honored.Insisted that The Bill of Rights applied to everybody equally, not just to people who looked like them.Thought that the principles of freedom should be equally applied, not just given to certain people.Tried to “establish justice” and “secure the blessings of liberty,” not just for themselves, but also for the oppressed.Defended human rights when they saw people being deprived of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”Didn’t just talk about the ideals of freedom and democracy, but sought to equally apply them.Continually resisted any attempts to keep certain people from accessing the principles of liberty.

Let’s recognize and honor the greatest Americans, those who most faithfully lived up to and defended everybody’s “inalienable rights.” Check the list of my Top Ten Greatest Americans of all time according to these principles.

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Daring to think about slavery

To act like the cruelty that a historical figured did doesn’t matter, is to say that the people he was cruel to didn’t matter. To boast in the good, but ignore (or hide) the bad behaviors of our forefathers is inconsistent. Truth matters.

Imagine the cruelty that it requires to keep people in life-long slavery. No slave would stick around unless cruelly confined.

Human trafficking is extreme cruelty, even when called “slavery.” “Kind slave master” and “kind human trafficker” are oxymorons.

Slavery was the denial of God-given free will. Those who forced it on people were guilty of great cruelty, but their guilt isn’t ours.

How bad was slavery? Worse than anyone who has never been a slave can possibly imagine.

If guilt can’t be inherited, then pride can’t either and we can take nothing good or bad from our forefathers. However, the least we should do is to be honest about their cruelty and never act like it didn’t matter.

The complexion deception

The complexion deception is a popular misconception that says that skin color makes people different. The truth is, all humans are basically the same, but we have different faces so that people can tell us apart.

In history
The color of skin
Was used as
A razor thin
Excuse
For abuse.

What you think about people in a different color of skin than you is what you’d think of Jesus if He was in that skin. We’re all created equal and skin has nothing to do with it!

Learn more about the complexion deception here.

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Manipulation is a sign of counterfeit Christianity

Manipulation is a sign of counterfeit Christianity. Coercive Christianity is aversive to voluntary surrender to the living Jesus Christ. The freedom to think creatively can never be taken away, but it’s often freely surrendered.

Church, by its nature, is coercive. It demands silence, passivity, and submission to its programs, from those in attendance.

The living Jesus doesn’t need a religious program, intermediary, or organization in order to interact with you. Jesus said “Make disciples,” not “Train people to hear a weekly sermon for the rest of their life.”

People who are pushed into church don’t have much joy. People who eagerly jump into obeying the living Jesus overflow with joy.

People with closed hearts have only superficial connections with other people. It’s better to have a deep heart than a deep pocket. Heart-felt connections make people happier than just accumulating money.

When Christianity is merged into an organizational structure, it loses most of it’s freedom, spontaneity, and supernatural power. The mistranslation of ekklesia as church is a big deal. That’s because it makes people think that today’s religious organizations are sanctioned by the Bible.

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The CET approach to history — criticize the bad, embrace the good

People are divided about Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT advocates want to criticize the bad things in history, while CRT opponents want to embrace the good things from the past. Perhaps there’s a more balanced approach.

We need Critical/Embrace Theory. Let’s embrace the noble things in our history and criticize the abusive.

Even a casual observation reveals that American history isn’t “either or.” America was established on both human rights principles and human rights violations. It boldly, courageously, and gloriously proclaimed freedom, all the while sanctioning and utilizing human trafficking to clear it’s land, raise its crops, and build it’s infrastructure.

America’s Founding Fathers were passionate about the principles of freedom, but possessive and protective of their ability to enslave and traffic other people. They declared that “all men are created equal” while they forcibly held (or legally supported those who did) innocent men, women, and children in forced, life-long servitude and bondage.

An honest look at history reveals that America has proclaimed “liberty and justice for all,” while allowing, legalizing, and institutionalizing “bondage and injustice for many.” That system of human bondage was called “the peculiar institution” by those who practiced it and defended it. America’s Bill of Rights and other glorious principles of freedom were not allowed to be applied to the people enslaved in “the peculiar institution.”

It took a brutal, internal war to end “the peculiar institution,” but it was soon replaced with other legalized forms of oppression and injustice. The “freedmen” and their descendants were forced to live as second class citizens under “Jim Crow” laws that denied their constitutional rights. They had to endure lynching, and other race-based terrorism. Meanwhile, the righteous principles of freedom continued to be proclaimed by their oppressors.

Black people could be convicted of a crime while legally not being allowed to testify in court. Then, once they were incarcerated, they were subject to “convict leasing.” They could be leased out to do brutal manual labor for private individuals, without pay and without protection against abuse. But Black people believed in the Bill of Rights even when those rights were being denied them through various legal and illegal means.

Black people, against almost impossible odds, continued to stake their claim to the American human rights principles. Inch by inch, over many decades they persisted. Many fought for America’s freedom principles in both World Wars. When they returned they expected that they would be granted more freedom at home for their sacrifices overseas. Instead they were brutally resisted, but they persisted to press for their freedom until a widespread movement of liberty arose.

The Civil Rights Movement finally brought down the oppressive Jim Crow laws and put Black Americans on equal legal footing with White Americans. It was a massive change that allowed Black people the legal freedom to begin to participate in the broader society, economy, and politics.

However, after centuries of racial divide and oppression, the legal changes didn’t automatically change people’s hearts or all the habits, beliefs, and systems that influence human behavior. We need to celebrate that America is now much more consistent with matching its human rights principles to its behaviors, while we strive to be honest about our history and to continually improve how people are treated.

I love to be around misfit Christ-followers who daily walk with Jesus outside of religious boxes.

The Bible presents Christianity as full of insight & delight

It's easy to recite
What you've heard
And think you're right.
It's harder to hear
With delight
And fresh insight.

The more you choose to delighted by life, the less you will feel defeated by it. To avoid mental and emotional contamination, it’s important to filter your thinking.

Repentance is getting out of an emotional bear trap, being set free from mental hand cuffs, and crawling from under the rubble in your life. When you surrender your brokenness to the risen Jesus, He turns it into a platform from which to demonstrate his power and love in and thru you.

Rather than following our own blueprint or script, Christ-followers are called to continually obey the living Jesus. When Christians assemble as an audience, they abdicate their responsibility to be an interactive, Spirit-led body of believers.

Often when people and/or churches talk about Jesus, they are referring to a pseudo-Jesus. A pseudo-Jesus is any Jesus other than the living, resurrected, Jesus, present in and with His followers (as presented in the Bible).

When you bend
In the wind
That the living Jesus sends
He will wend
Your way with love.

Search for my book: The Joy Of Early Christianity.

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