Steve Simms's Blog, page 181
June 15, 2021
Bias against spiritual experiences
The modern bias that spiritual experiences are only subjective causes many people to reject them without honest investigation. If my experiences of Christ in me were subjective, they wouldn’t beautifully align with other people’s experiences of Christ.
The Bible often contradicts my feelings, desires, and opinions. It helps me to align myself more closely to God.
When people forget
That their conscience matters,
Society pays
A dreadful price.
It’s not time for silence
When people are seen
As targets for violence.
Lord means “Supreme Ruler.” Jesus isn’t our Lord if we are doing our own thing. Sometimes the best thing you can do for God is not to go where He doesn’t want you to be.
Let Jesus
Be your King,
Lord of
Everything,
And His kingdom
Reign.
What you think has a much greater impact on your life than what anybody else thinks about you. It’s easier to improve what you’re thinking than it is to change what they’re thinking.
Just because I think I’m right, doesn’t mean I am. It’s wise to double check anything I write.
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June 13, 2021
Thinking with hope & inspiration makes my day
I can’t imagine living without creative thinking. Every time I start to get discouraged, fresh, innovative ideas get in my way.
The best way to be happy is to think yourself into it. If you truly convince yourself that you’re happy, then you will be.
Thinking is life’s inner sport. Suit up! Start thinking and solve your problems. Life isn’t random, it’s rational. Find the answer to the puzzles that block your happiness. If you won’t control your mind, someone or something else will.
Think good thoughts, over and over, until they begin to continually burn in your heart. Then they will carry you to an amazing life.
Once you’ve thought about something positive and uplifting, don’t stop thinking. Thinking’s more powerful as a lifestyle than as an occasional occurrence.
Thinking is more than merely letting thoughts run thru your mind. It’s observing, analyzing, reasoning and controlling your thoughts.
Thinking that is dominated by our feelings, desires, and opinions, is seldom very accurate. When we detach our thinking from our emotions, desires, and opinions, we begin to understand more clearly.
If you won’t change your thinking, outward changes in your life won’t improve your state of mind. If you do think about life and search for positive ways to improve, you can always make your life better.
Thought patterns are addicting. The ones you are addicted to will determine the direction of your life.
An open mind considers various ideas but doesn’t accept them all. However, an unused mind accepts whatever comes its way.
Genuine thinking leads to logical conclusions, which aren’t always pleasant. That’s why it requires courage.
If you try to make people think, they’ll often think you’re up to something no good. Check out the following attempts to make people think:
When a group of people appears to be thinking the same, many of them aren’t thinking, but are merely agreeing with the crowd.
When you read a text on your phone, it didn’t originate there. Perhaps the thoughts in your brain don’t originate there either.
Jump start your thinking by trying to write statement that’s probably never been said before.
Initiating violence
Is heartless,
Thoughtless,
Cowardly,
Demonic and cruel.
Be kind.
Napoleon Bonaparte caused many men to be blown apart. War’s not the glorious thing that it’s made out to be.
Spiritual awakening seldom comes thru institutional Christianity, but thru ordinary people who begin to listen to and obey Jesus.
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June 12, 2021
You have the right to know unpopular American history
Color-coded
History,
Loaded
With myths,
Has eroded
Much truth
About our past.
Just talk away René (being creative with his famous quote)
René Descartes is famous for saying, “I think, therefore I am.” Now “I am” letting René’s quote inspire my thinking.
I think, therefore am I?
I think, therefore I have a brain. Perhaps I should use it more.
I think, therefore I fact check before I believe Tweets or Facebook posts.
I think, therefore I am sometimes confused.
I think. That’s what my mind is there for.
I think, therefore I’m frequently outside the box.
I think therefore I am conscious. (Hey y’all, this is me writing this, not some computer inside of me.)
I think, therefore I realize that I’m not always right. (Don’t just accept something I say, but think about it for yourself.)
I think, therefore I notice that sometimes when I think I’m thinking, I’m only repeating habitual thoughts in my mind.
I think, therefore I am continually refusing to let unhealthy thoughts stay in my mind and torment me.
I think, therefore I am working to improve the quality of my thoughts and make my life better.
I think, therefore I believe that my thoughts matter, so I monitor and control them and carefully choose them.
I think, therefore I am unwilling to believe everything that I think or feel unless I verify that it is truthful and helpful.
I think, therefore I am able to manage my mind and arrange it in a way that produces the best outcomes for me.
I think, therefore I examine my thoughts and explore why so many of them are unwanted and not freely self-chosen.
I think, therefore I am responsible for what I allow in my mind and how I live my life.
I think I am better than I am, but the more I get to know me, the more I learn I am as capable of evil as any other human being.
I think, therefore I am sometimes deceived. All that I think isn’t correct or morally right.
I think, therefore I am aware that I can’t explain everything, but have to accept some things by faith.
I think that thinking takes more courage than it does smarts.
I think, therefore I am the thinker inside me, but I notice that some thoughts I disagree with, also come from within me.
I think, therefore I have opinions, (but sometimes I have opinions that rise up independent of my thinking).
I think, therefore I am not saying that my thoughts are random, but that I have the power to choose them or reject them.
I think, therefore I am aware that racism is morally wrong. Search: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.
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June 11, 2021
When Jesus is internalized
Without the internalization of the living Jesus, Christians become dependent on religious leaders and meetings. Jesus wants to release living water from within you, but humans like to set up an auditorium and give talks about it.
If there’s no inner connection with the living Jesus, outward religion doesn’t change a person very much. Without the inner resources to daily delight in life, we strive to find outward substitutes for a happy heart.
To internalize
Christianity,
Keep your eyes
On Jesus
Until you realize
His presence.
We need
Spiritual search parties
That gather
To seek the presence
Of the living Jesus.
Ask God,
Not for the answers
You want,
But for the help
You need.
Pride interrogates.
Humility asks for help.
If you don’t knock
On the doors
That lead to
Experiencing Jesus,
You’ll miss out.
To internalize
Christianity
You have to
Open your heart
And see with
Your inner eyes.
Many people
Read the Bible
As “out there” and
“Back then”
But don’t let it
Burn within!
Internalized Christianity is the most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced, but institutionalized Christianity often distracts from it. Internalize Jesus!
Whatever you plant in your mind and allow to grow in your heart, will soon show up in how you live your life. A heart, crowded with distractions and self-focus, has no space for God. To internalize Jesus we need to clean out room for Him. Jesus spoke of 4 conditions of the human heart: 1) shut-down, 2) shallow, 3) distracted, or 4) Christ-internalized.
Humans lack the capacity to want everything at once, so we have to choose the desires we focus on. Crave good, don’t cave to evil.
Jesus taught that we should show mercy. Mercy isn’t approval. We can’t show mercy unless we believe someone has done wrong.
There are plenty of people spreading unkindness, but we’re suffering from a severe shortage of peacemakers. Peacemakers don’t bring people to agreement. They bring them to kindness, compassion, mercy, and humility.
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June 10, 2021
Life’s amazing. Be fascinated!
If nothing fascinates you,
You’ll be bored
No matter what you do.
Children are frequently fascinated by life, but in adults that quality is too often eliminated. A person who isn’t fascinated by life has to work hard to avoid being bored.
You don’t have to travel to be fascinated. There are fascinating things and people all around you.
When circumstances don’t go your way let them fascinate you instead of frustrating you. Fascination is much more enjoyable.
Ordinary people are fascinating and inspiring if you take the time to connect with them heart to heart. To me, the best paying job is one that fascinates me.
When a book is fascinating, reading is fun! Find one that fascinates you.
Heart-felt spirituality can increase your level of fascination. The Bible is the most fascinating book I’ve ever read. After reading it almost daily for 50 years, I still devour it.
As I seek to follow the living Jesus, He leads me into fascinating experiences every day. I am continually amazed by what He does. I’ve never understood how church can bore me by talking about Jesus.
Fasten your heart
To the living Jesus
And you’ll be
Fascinated
24/7/365.
Marinate
In Jesus.
Soak
In His presence.
Let Him
Continually fascinate
You.
When I’m still
And ponder Jesus,
I sense He’s real
And I overflow
With fascination.
This is fascinating. Ancient Jews were afraid to use God’s name, so they called Him Lord. The early Christians said: “Jesus is Lord!”
Repentance opens the heart to fascination. To repent is to filter out the impurities in our feelings, desires, and opinions with the Word of God and presence of the living Jesus. Confusion: People deny external reality by lying, but then proclaim that they can’t change their desires and emotions.
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June 9, 2021
How to overcome frustration
Walk the woods.
There’s no frustration there.
Trees don’t resist the wind.
They bend.
Frustration sees obstacles as threats. Hope sees them as guideposts.
When life offers you a buffet of frustration, turn down the offer. Be like a perspective-changing video clip and look at frustrating situations from various view points.
The best cure for frustration is often a change in your own attitude. You create frustration by focusing on what you don’t have. You create gratitude by focusing on what you do have. As long as you maintain the right to choose your own thoughts, feelings and desires, you can create a wonderful attitude about life.
Frustration only exists inside you. It’s both an attitude and an emotion. It’s not a physical reality. Much frustration is self-induced by insisting on our own desires and emotions instead of learning from our circumstances.
Uncontrolled desire eventually produces frustration and disappointment. Unfasten frustration and buckle up to fascination.
When frustration sets in, gratitude goes out. Delay and disappointment can lead to frustration or to innovation, depending on how you respond.
To avoid frustration, find and focus on the good fortune in your life. It’s there waiting to be discovered and appreciated.
Let frustration lead you forward to creativity and improvement, not backward to blame and anger. Failing the same way over and over leads to frustration. Trying new ways to succeed leads to creativity and hope.
Self-focus feeds frustration. Frustration isn’t easily controlled, but we can choose whether or not we feed it and let it grow.
Be like a perspective-changing video clip and look at frustrating situations from various view points. It’s important not to ignore the point of view of your conscience. It is the gravitational pull that keeps your life in orbit. Without your conscience you’ll crash. Going along with a feeling or desire makes you an accomplice to it.
We have the right not to be offended or frustrated, but the government can’t give it to us. We can choose compassion instead of taking offense. People often disagree with each other on where to draw moral lines, but almost everybody does draw them.
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June 8, 2021
The gods of human nature are deceptive
The gods of human nature are deceptive. When the impulses of the conscience are shut down, the gods of feeling and desire have free reign. Feelings and desires work better as our servants than as our gods.
When we exalt and serve our feelings and desires, rather than aligning them with reality, they become our gods. If you’ve ever been wrong when you sincerely thought you were right, you’ve experienced the deception of the gods of human nature.
Christ-followers are called to be led by the impulses of God’s Spirit, not by our human nature. Check your impulses. If none of them are from God, you’ve cut yourself off from His voice.
When something flashes into your mind that is good and wholesome and not what you want to do, it might be God speaking to you. Try listening to His voice instead of your desires & feelings.
People don’t have a right to demand that we approve of or agree with their behavior. We all have a right to have moral standards. It’s okay to proclaim that we don’t believe in following the gods of human nature.
If you want to be happy, be helpful. If you want to be sad, be focused on your own desires, feelings, and opinions.
To be inconsiderate is to be love illiterate. It is anti-Christian. The Bible says: “Consider others better than yourself.”
Help somebody — anybody. You don’t have to agree with people or approve of their beliefs to help them.
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June 6, 2021
Feelings, desires, & opinions lead to illusion more often than to reality
Our feelings, desires, don’t opinions don’t always tell us the truth. Sometimes they lie. The strength of a feeling, desire, or opinion is not a measure of its importance or accuracy. Many of our feelings, desires, and opinions don’t “follow the science” or the facts.
Honesty is essential to a stable life, because without honesty we build our lives on the faulty foundation of falsehood. Lying covers up truth and tries to hide it. It can never change truth, but instead voluntarily puts falsehood in truth’s place.
Our feelings, desires, and opinions are often inner bullies that try to compel us to obey them. They lead to illusion more often than to reality. Just because we want, feel, or think something, doesn’t make it true.
Feelings, desires, and opinions are a fragile foundation for building your life because they frequently fade and shift like sand. To try to replace reality with our feelings, desires, or opinions is a dangerous way to live.
Reality isn’t determined by the feelings, desires, and opinions that clamor within us. When the doctor wrote “male” on my birth certificate, he wasn’t following his feelings, desires, or opinions, but the reality he saw right in front of his eyes.
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Weeding out corruption must begin in your own heart
To lie
Is to deny
Reality,
Exchanging it
For childish
Make believe.
Be a look out
Who looks within
To guard your heart
From corruption.
Corruption is supported by lies. Truth telling exposes it. Lying is the doorway to corruption. Weeding out corruption must begin in your own heart.
The greatest safeguard against corruption is the human conscience. The more we awaken it, the safer we’ll all be. Every attempt to get someone to violate their conscience releases more corruption into the world.
It’s much easier to see corruption around us than the corruption within us. Your conscience is a great lie detector. It continually tries to tell you when you’re lying.
Power doesn’t corrupt a person. It exposes the corruption that was already there and waiting for an opportunity.
Self-focus leads to self-protection which then leads to deception. Truth is found beyond our own feelings, desires, and opinions.
No matter how great a government or organization sounds, it will be as corrupt as the people who operate it are. Humanity is full of systemic problems. We don’t just need better organizations. We need to be better people.
End heart-stemic racism! Learn to appreciate God’s creativity in the array of human skin colors.
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