Steve Simms's Blog, page 179

To let go of regret, reset.

Regrets are in the past; choices are in the present. Although you can’t undo your regrets, you are free to reset and to make fresh choices today.

Self-focus leads to a lifestyle of ongoing “relationshipwreck” — broken hearts, shattered friendships, and ruined romances. It takes courage to honestly confess your wrong behavior. It takes even more courage to stop it.

I gave up my independence when I surrendered my life to the living Jesus and gained freedom from guilt, regret, and inner torment. Without God’s forgiveness, I’d be full of guilt and regret.

When you forget
To regret
Disappointment
Loses its effect.TRUE FREEDOM
It's easy to fret
Over guilt and regret
And let it steal
Your happiness.
Instead, open your heart
And humbly reveal
The wrongs you've done,
So you can begin to heal.BROKEN DREAMS
What might have been
Might not have been
As wonderful
As you imagine itFREEDOM DAYRegret is a distractionTormenting youAbout inactionOr wrong action,But active interactionWith JesusBrings healing.TRUE FREEDOMIt's easy to fretOver guilt and regretAnd let it stealYour happiness.Instead, open your heartAnd humbly revealThe wrongs you've done,So you can begin to heal.Let disappointed regret
Lead you to humility
And guilty regret
Lead you to repentance.

Jesus can reset
Your life
And erase your debt
To regret.

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Is this racism?

Racism? A few days ago I was having a conversation with a white woman. When several young black guys walked by, she said, “They make me uncomfortable.” I asked, “Who? “She said, “They might grab my purse.” I said, “Anybody could do that.”

Racism is often so simple that we think it doesn’t exist. When black lives really matter, we will want to know more about the way black people were treated in our history.

Human trafficking (slavery) was, is, and always will be a terrible evil. Reading the fuller story of history shows me that people who actively engaged in human trafficking don’t deserve to be honored with statues.

If you only want to know the parts of history that make you feel good about your country, you’ll miss many facts. For example: “All men are created equal,” has too often been a “Declaration” ignored. We have a Creator and we are all peers.

Too many lies about race have passed into history and are accepted today as truth. History can’t be changed, but hidden, ignored, and/or twisted history can be honestly revealed. I’ve been trying to find the truth about race.

If you’re not racist
There’s no need
To say so.
It will show
Wherever you go (or refuse to go).

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Orchards don’t just happen

Orchards and vineyards don’t just happen. They must be planted, tended, pruned, and cultivated. The fruit of the Holy Spirit must be cultivated. It doesn’t just grow wild in an untended heart. The fruit of the Spirit is the character of God and needs to be intentionally cultivated by how we tend to our heart and mind.

God wants your heart to be a fruitful orchard, not a field overrun by weeds. Let the living Jesus be an orchard in your heart, not just a teaching in your mind. If your roots aren’t deep into the risen Jesus, neither will your fruit be.

When Christians neglect to daily focus on the risen Jesus, we become like an abandoned orchard. We are called to be the branches in God’s orchard that bear good fruit from the vine of the living Jesus. See John 14.

An unguarded mind will be harassed by unwelcome thoughts; an unguarded heart, hassled by unwelcome emotions. There are some things that you can’t control, but your mind isn’t one of them. It’s ironic that many people who lack self-control spend a lot of their time trying to control other people.

Humility is underrated. Maybe we should celebrate it with a humility month by putting other people ahead of self.

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Is Jesus happy with church as usual?

Surrender control
And roll
With Jesus’ flow.

If people gathered to honor you, but ignored your presence among them, you wouldn’t like it. Jesus probably doesn’t either.

Without ongoing, personal interaction with the living Jesus, Christianity is just one more religion. When Christians allowed talks about Jesus to replace interacting with His presence, we traded His power for a form of godliness.

It seems so simple. If Jesus is really alive (like Christians say) we should let Him actively lead and direct us when we meet. Instead we say, “Jesus is the Head of the church,” but then make a preacher or program the real head.

Christians seem eager to rally around a preacher, a doctrine, a church building, or even a politician, but slow to rally around Jesus. In fact, they often bring active and harsh resistance against a gathering of Christians that seeks to follow Jesus instead of a program.

It’s rare to find a group of Christians that gathers, listens to Jesus together, and then lets people say and do what He tells them to. Why should religious programs have a monopoly on Christian meetings?

When I read the Bible with an open heart, it’s not just words, but inner revelation and revolutionary life! It’s amazing how reading that ancient book inebriates my heart, as though it is full of new wine.

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More than self-driving cars, the world needs Christ-driven people.

More than self-driving cars, the world needs Christ-driven people.

If you give up control
And freely roll
With the living Jesus,
You’ll be made whole.

Set your life
On Christ-control
And let the living Jesus
Drive you to His goal.

Pain becomes gain
When it motivates you
To connect
Heart to heart
With God.

The Serenity Prayer is famous. Here’s my Wisdom Prayer: Lord, grant me the wisdom to accept thoughts from You, the courage to reject thoughts that aren’t from You, and the serenity to know the difference.

Monitor the thought traffic in your mind. Unfriend and block the thoughts that try to take you in harmful directions. If you won’t control your thoughts, feelings, and desires, any appearance that you’re in control is only an illusion.

Any thought you have about forgiving people is from God. Forgiveness breaks the pain chain and sets you free from the tormenting desire to get even. It also breaks your emotional attachment to the people who’ve caused you pain.

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Religious structures and Jesus didn’t (don’t) get along

To experience being unstructured and spontaneous, many people depend on alcohol. The new wine of the Holy Spirit works for me!

The flow of the Holy Spirit and religious structure are often at odds. Too often, in Christianity, structure is allowed to dominate. Unfortuately for church, the more organized a meeting is, the less spontaneous heart-connection will happen.

Religious structure separates people. It doesn’t unite them the way that Jesus prayed in John 17.

In the Bible, the Old Testament shows that religious structure couldn’t change hearts. The New Testament is the testimony of hearts changed by Jesus.

It’s hard to continually experience the living Jesus if we won’t step beyond religious structures into the freedom of the Spirit. Church is often like a structured tour of a famous city. It rushes you by the sights, but doesn’t let you fully experience them.

Biblical Christianity thrives when people freely follow the Holy Spirit, but drowns when highly structured. It’s about empowering individuals from within, not about building hierarchal, organizational structures.

Traditional Christianity, unlike early Christianity, takes a very structured and controlled approach to God. Structured, routine, and typical church, that follows the same pattern every week, seldom helps me connect with the living Jesus.

Perhaps church services are so highly organized because Christians (and their pastors) fear unstructured time with God. Too much structure and organization turns Christianity into a dam that shuts down the free flow of the Holy Spirit.

Humans don’t like to be unstructured and spontaneous. We even organize our play and then call it sports or games. One of the main reasons that Christians quench the Holy Spirit is because we fear unstructured time.

When we’re unwilling to be unstructured and spontaneous, the Holy Spirit doesn’t feel welcome. Jesus wants us to relate to Him like children precisely because they’re unstructured and spontaneous.

Jesus was born in a highly structured Roman/religious world. His spontaneity wasn’t well received (nor is it today). The Pharisees, of that time, wanted Jesus crucified because they saw Him as a threat to their religious traditions and structures.

Some Christians are cessationists and believe that God no longer does miracles. I’m a continuationist and experience miracles daily. If the gifts of the Spirit aren’t operating in you, it’s not because they ceased to operate, but because you’ve quenched the Spirit.

Every time you ignore an inner prompting from God (regardless of the reason), you “quench” the Holy Spirit. If you’re a Christian, the Bible warns you not to “quench” (hinder or hold back) the Holy Spirit.

People need freedom! To act like human beings are only physical beings is like saying that a book is only paper and ink.

Christian dogma barks,
Howls and growls.
Christian love
Changes hearts.

To follow Jesus
It requires
We set aside
Our own desires.

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Prepare the Waze of the Lord

Sort thru
The thoughts
Within you
To do
The few
From God
And they’ll
Grow into
Many.

If Jesus was doing His earthly ministry in 2021 He might say, “I am the Waze, the truth, and the life.” (If John the Baptist was alive in 2021, he might say: “Prepare the Waze of the Lord.”)

Just because Waze is on your phone and Jesus is in your heart, doesn’t mean you’re listening to and obeying them. Having Jesus in your heart without following His directions is like having Waze on your phone without logging on to it.

The living Jesus is like Waze. The people listening to Him are all getting different directions depending on their spiritual location.

When distractions
Become our
Main attractions
We get off track
And lose sight of God.

We have a choice. We can let a disc track habitually distract your mind or you we stream fresh thoughts from God.

Daily following and obeying the inner promptings and proddings of the living Jesus is energizing and refreshing.

I believe your conscience can better instruct you about how to follow Jesus than a preacher can, if you listen to it.

Too often religion analyzes Christianity but neglects to actualize it. If you look back you can see that Jesus was present in your past. If you look around, you can see that He’s present now.

Like fire hoses flowing in my heart, the rivers of living water that Jesus predicted continually energize me. Let the living Jesus innergize you with His power and energy flowing from within you.

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Awe-sitivity — the wonder of it all

When awe sneaks
Into your heart,
Linger.
Wonder.
Gasp.
Let inspired tears
Freely flow.

Make way for awe.
To avoid it
Is to miss
The brilliance
And magnitude
Of life.

Awe for life matters!
Deep and profund
Wonder and respect
For human life
Is momentous.

If you're unwillingTo live beyond selfAnd be awareOf vastnessAnd transcendence,Awe will be rare.

An inner infusion of awe, can turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary day! Awe’s always available if we seek it. It expands our perception and makes us acutely aware of things that are beyond our comprehension.

When we recognize the significance of our life and the life of all people, a sense of awe will flood our heart. Most people have had a few awe experiences in their life. Few people live in a continual state of awe.

Open, tender people are continually awestruck by life. Cold, hard people are often struck down by their own bitterness and negativity.

It’s painful to see life as awful, but glorious to see life as awe-full. To live unimpressed by life and the glories that surround you, is a tragic lapse into apathy.

To fall into awe is to begin to experience the splendor of life with appreciation and gratitude. The unwillingness to ponder and wonder about things that we don’t understand often prevents us from experiencing awe.

If there’s a shortage of awe and wonder in your life, read the Bible with an open heart. Then get ready to be continually amazed.

Everyday I see God do amazing things that leave me in a state of awe and wonder. An unwillingness to be awestruck by the living Jesus, keeps many Christian from experiencing the victory God that has for them.

Make the living Jesus a daily part of your consciousness. Let Him direct your thinking and you’ll be amazed at where your mind will go!

An aweless church service is a disservice to the majesty and glory of the presence of the living Jesus. To be aware of the immensity of the living Jesus while experiencing the intimacy of His presence, is transformational!

When Christians are unaware of the awesome presence of Jesus, they settle for religious routine. Let the living Jesus make you lighthearted with supernatural insights and the joy and peace of His presence.

Awe-sitivity, being sensitive to awe, was prevalent among the early Christians. When it’s absent, faith is greatly hindered. Take divine awe out of Christianity and all you’re left with is duty and dogma.

The book of Acts shows how the early Christians continually created an atmosphere of awe. Read it and then do what they did. Pushing aside the mystery of God by continually trying to explain Him, has robbed Christianity of much of its wonder and awe.

Christians are taught
How to sit thru a talk
But not how to daily walk
In awe of God.

One day,
I was thunderstruck
By Jesus
And boom!
My life was
Forever changed!

Does Life Matter? People matter, more than any of us realize.

Most governments say
That life doesn’t matter
When it’s on death row,
An enemy combatant,
Or waiting to be born.

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Realizing God’s real makes a really big difference in life

Because your unaware,
Doesn’t mean
That God’s not there,
Unnoticed in life’s glare.

The realization that God is real will make a really big difference in your life. When you’re unaware of God, you live like He is absent, even when you’re surrounded by His presence.

We are free to ignore the presence of God and fill our life with distractions, if we choose. Tormenting thoughts often require extended mental combat, otherwise they can last a lifetime.

The more you pursue awareness of God, the more you will experience His presence. God-seekers grow in closeness to Him. Since Jesus lives in the present, you can continually enjoy His presence while living on earth and not have to wait until you die.

Often drowned out by mental and emotional noise, the still, small voice of the living God steadily speaks within human hearts. It’s hard to find the living God in objects when He’s actively working in your heart to show you His presence. “Be still and know . . .”

I love it when spontaneous, joy-filled celebrations of God’s presence break out in my heart. God’s presence amidst His people is not a myth. I’ve experienced it many times.

It’s easy to ignore spiritual awareness–the inner indication that there’s more to life than organic mechanics–or we can pursue it. If you look within you, you’ll notice something that’s trying to lead you to better behavior, even when you don’t want to follow.

Your awareness overflows with thoughts, feelings, and desires. The ones you accept and focus on will shape your life.

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The idea of a human color hierarchy is a myth

My fellow human beings, thru all their struggles and faults, have beauty within. I’m glad to be part of the human race!

Unfortunately, a cruel focus on skin-color has filled centuries with indescribable pain. Let’s focus on kindness. 21st century humanity needs a break from colorism.

Skin color is real. However the centuries old concept of a skin color hierarchy is a myth that needs to be busted.

We aren’t suspicious of dogs, cats, hamsters, horses, cattle, or chickens because of their color. It would be nice if we had the same respect for people.

It’s nonsense to define who people are by their eye color (or by their skin color). If you classify people by the color of their skin, you’ll overlook who they are within.

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