Steve Simms's Blog, page 201

Contemplate yourself to joy . . .

Life is happier when it’s appreciated than when it’s analyzed. The human mind can be both analytical and perceptive. We need both aspects.

Too often inspiring thoughts pass thru the brain without getting to the heart. Like your eyes slowly scan a lovely view, let your inner awareness scan for insight. Contemplation watches and waits for inspiring thoughts to emerge from within.

Seeing beyond your opinions, feelings, and analysis, is the beginning of wisdom. Contemplation observes many things that can’t be see with the eyes. Setting aside inner distractions to quietly ponder enables us to receive inspirations. You can learn much by observing (as a spectator) the thoughts and feelings within you.

Analysis finds ways to manipulate. Contemplation finds ways to appreciate. Often heart-felt contemplation can give you better answers than mind-based analysis. Contemplation looks beyond analysis and beholds mystery and wonder. It gazes at hope that the physical eyes cannot see.

By carefully observing your thoughts and emotions you can learn to manage them better. We all need “depth perception,” the ability to observe deeper than physical appearances. Nothing can remove any darkness that’s in you, if you choose to shut out the light.

Since we have thoughts we disagree with, they must come from another source than us. Spiritual discernment helps us distinguish between the thoughts in our mind that originate with us and those from other sources. It’s good to sort thru your thoughts & to decide which ones you need to get rid of.

Contemplation ponders intangible concepts (like beauty) with wonder and awe, instead of with rationality. Trying to find yourself isn’t the pursuit of happiness. Forgetting about self, is. To “find yourself,” you need to discover what’s pulling you away from God’s image. You can discover & remove the viral thoughts that infect your brain with dysfunction.

Be still and let “Christ in you” focus your attention on whatever He wants to show you. The mind can originate thoughts. It can also be used to perceive insights from God. Introspection, focused on self, produces guilt–but on “Christ in you,” glory!

No matter how much we long for them, the future or the past will never be in the present. Here’s the road to joy: Set your inner perception on the living Jesus, instead of on self. An introspective search for Jesus will set you free from introspective analysis. God’s light shines in people’s hearts, yet many don’t recognize it when they see it.

The faintest thought could be the voice of God and can cure second hand faith

I’ve never been satisfied
With religious information,
But Christ-centered contemplation,
Floods me with inspiration.

Information without wonder is drab. Information that stirs the heart is thrilling!

To contemplate is to ponder with wonder. Contemplation discovers the splendid in the simple. I like to be quiet and let the living Jesus assemble the fragments of my thoughts. Sometimes the faintest thought, on the back burner of the brain, is the voice of God. As the living Jesus tries to lead you from within, you either follow or ignore Him.

Activate your heart to contemplate, meditate, ruminate, wonder and ponder. Christianity without contemplation is a deflated hot air balloon. Listen to Jesus. You can go beyond secondhand (inherited) faith and experience the living Jesus directly. When you humbly contemplate the living Jesus, He will lead your thoughts and feelings.

The Bible is for contemplation, not just for study. Let the words burn in your heart. Ponder the One the Bible calls Emmanuel (God with us). Connection with the living Jesus is within the heart, not in physical surroundings.

The Christian message is more than religious information. It must include lifestyle transformation. Religious information can instruct the mind, but Christ-centered contemplation heals the heart. Ongoing, spiritual contemplation of the living Jesus, is life-transforming.

When I contemplate nature’s nonverbal communication, I hear shouts of praise to God. Through out nature and in the depths of our being, God speaks, even when we won’t hear, yet without inner openness and receptivity to the voice of God, we’ll ignore Him.

Christ-centered, spiritual reading, ignites my connection with the living Jesus. Christ-centered contemplation will end your frustration and overcome your stagnation. Open-hearted contemplation, enables me to recognize and adore Jesus thru out the day.

Religious information and church services are poor substitutes for the living Jesus. The original Christmas events (and other biblical events) deserve our spiritual contemplation, not just our sentimentality.

The current of life is humility. Even pride gets swept away by it. Contemplation requires it. Let your heart be seized by the reality of the living Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t need a religious institution to organize and run His body. He can do it Himself. To confine Jesus to organizations is like confining love to them. Both Jesus and love are matters of the heart, not institutional hierarchies. Humans don’t need to join an organization in order to follow and obey the risen Jesus.

Thoughts about worship / worship is beyond thoughts

To hear a talk about worship without expressing adoration to Jesus, misses the point. A Sunday program is a poor substitute for passionate, heart-driven adoration of God. Christian teaching “ascribes” glory to God but heart-felt worship actively adores Him.

Worship is to be lost in mind-blowing amazement at the love and reality of Jesus. I love to join with the heavenly hosts in adoration of the living, resurrected Jesus! Life looks different when you’re continually engaged with and in awe of Jesus.

Discipleship is to faithfully obey Jesus. Worship is to express adoration to Him and that fills me with awe and wonder! Expressing adoration directly to God is good for the heart. My heart is healed when the roads I take bring me closer to the living Jesus.

Worship is to allow yourself to be overcome and undone by the presence of Jesus. We can learn to live everyday with our attention and adoration focused on the living Jesus. We were created to worship God. To continually adore Jesus is to fulfil our purpose.

A formalized relationship has little intimacy. The same with formalized worship. Worship isn’t a “service” that’s done for you. It’s heart-felt adoration you give to God. Reading the Bible daily with an open heart, continually calls me to worship God. When we neglect to adore the risen Jesus, something else is on the throne in our life.

To openly and sincerely adore the living Jesus is to soar into unspeakable joy! A heart enraptured in worship understands Jesus much better than the mind can ever do. The more I spend time praising & thanking Jesus, the more His joy fills my heart!

When heart-felt love is expressed to God, worship has occurred. The highest form of worship is the open expression of sincere adoration to Jesus. Any praise that isn’t from the depths of the heart, falls short of genuine worship.

Heaven is about pure, continual, heart-felt worship. Will you be comfortable there?

My favorite Christmas phrase is: “O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.” Those who followed the Christmas Star expressed worship directly to the living Jesus.

Worship is a neglected form of prayer. It is to express adoration directly to God.

Your conscience can make you happy. Give it a chance.

Perhaps happiness only seems hard to find. Maybe it’s all around us but we ignore it.

Every time you give your conscience an excuse, it gets weaker from misuse. Some attractions are distractions leading to harmful actions. Follow your conscience. Distractions are mental hijackers. An ignored conscience results in many problems and much guilt.

The purpose of conscience is to warn us of harmful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The most ignored warning system in the world is the human conscience. Sometimes people will go to great extremes to avoid facing their conscience.

What you ignore can hurt you. It’s not difficult to become distracted from truth. Continual denial can be disastrous. It’s dangerous to live continually unconscious of your conscience. Be courageous. Ask your conscience, “How can I improve my life?”

Much that is called entertainment is better ignored than absorbed. When I ignore me, I’m happy. I find myself to be most happy and fulfilled when I have a focus beyond myself.

The deliberate avoidance of facts is dangerous. One way people try to soothe their conscience is by ignoring certain facts. To ignore or deny what you know is true, is to intentionally lie to yourself. The most important place for “law & order” is your own mind & emotions.

Conscience is the voice of God warning us of self-destructive danger. The possibility of a God who holds us accountable, is often ignored because of inconvenience. The purpose of our conscience isn’t to sooth our pain, but to avoid even more pain.

Ignore the ugly noise of anger and hate. Focus on showing kindness to everyone.

Ignoring harmful distractions is a skill that can be learned. Find an inspiring focus. A to-do list is fine, but it’s also good to put harmful things on a to-ignore list.

Let’s reverse Xmas to Christx

The abbreviation, Xmas deletes the wrong letters. I prefer Christx–exalting the living Jesus! On Christx Day, remember God’s xtreme love in sending Emmanuel (God with us). Christx is a good time to show Jesus’ extravagant love to everyone.

O, the joy of Christx–the exhilaration of a daily relationship with the risen Jesus! Merry Christx. Let’s make it a lifestyle of xtreme love, not the “holiday shopping season.”

Christx is God’s forgiveness. Let the risen Jesus x-out your guilt and set you free. I love to celebrate Christx — to focus on the living Jesus without distractions. Christx: I’ve got Jesus; how could I want more?

Except for the first 2/3s of the name, it seems like the real meaning of Christ*mas was cancelled long ago. La Navidad, The Birth, is the Spanish name for Christmas.

Once Jesus was born in my heart, I could see beyond the traditions of Christmas. If not continually stirred up, faith in Christ fades, like an unattended camp fire.

The biblical events that inspired Christmas cause me to focus on the living Jesus! I love to think Jesus, talk Jesus, listen to Jesus, obey Jesus, worship Jesus — day and night.

Christ-access–mud puddles or living water?

Access to religious information cannot compare to direct access to the living Jesus. Christians who deny the living Jesus direct access to their heart, miss the whole point of faith because biblical Christianity is about Christ-access; it’s not a Christ-bypass.

Mud puddles in the human heart make life a mess — but rivers of living water bring joy “unspeakable and full of glory.” The risen Jesus can clean your heart, turning mud puddles into rivers of living water. God’s gift of grace enables us to repent–to walk in stride with God’s will.

Guilt is a wall between us and God. The living Jesus is the door. When searching for God, guilt says access denied, but the living Jesus offers forgiveness and says enter in.

Church gets off track when Spirit-led people are silenced. Religious programs, by design, don’t allow room for the risen Jesus to intervene. In fact, many religious organizations contain systemic Spirit-quenching. Church should invite everyday people to testify about Jesus, not keep them off the platform.

Friendly conversations with people who look/think differently than you are enjoyable. Christ-followers should embrace those types of compassionate conversations.

Status symbols clash with reality . . .

Hierarchies are “status cymbals” clamoring to categorize us as superior or inferior. But when we lump people into various categories, we miss out on their individual stories.

There’s no place for inhumanity in humanity. Let’s have grace for the human race. Bias is like wifi; just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean that you don’t have it.

Nature proclaims equality. We all come from the same humble beginnings–one sperm meeting one egg.

The form asks for "race,"
But none of the boxes
Lists "human" in the choices,
So I check "other."

Decategorize
Humanity.
See people through
Compassionate eyes.

To look down on other people is an attempt at self-supremacy. However, in reality, to devalue others is to insult yourself in the mirror of humanity. Pride is bias because it lets self overshadow truth.

There’s nothing great about hate. It’s impossible to hate and not discriminate.

If we all lived like all lives matter, no one would feel the need to say black lives matter. It was evil when skin-shade was made a stigma, a way to degrade people. The most cruel thing people have ever done to other people is race-based slavery.

The human race is indivisible. No matter how we feel about others they’re still human.

To evaluate people in a negative way opens the gate to hate, but compassion leads to kindness. Color blindness sees only black and white. Color-kindness sees beauty in diversity.

Mental fog & the worst thing an enemy can do to you

Understanding reality
Is often a casualty
Of what we think we see.

There are none so unkind as people who won’t see the pain in their enemy. The worst thing an enemy can do to you is to convince you to hate him. Hate comes naturally to those who continually see the worst in people.

You don’t see everything clearly! Look beyond the routine of your ordinary perception. Shift thru mental lenses like an optometrist, until inner peace comes into view. Unfavorable facts are no less true than favorable ones.

Inspiration is all around. Once you perceive it you’ll receive it. Pessimism’s a perspective; so is optimism. Reality can be interpreted either way. A bad habit of thought, can make the mind distraught. Break it’s fetter; think better. Joyful thoughts are mental wealth.

Humanity’s mental fog makes it difficult for us to clearly see truth. When truth knocks on our door, we often won’t let it in. Truth often ignites hostility, especially when we don’t want to hear it. Changing the camera angle of how you see your life can work wonders in your attitude. People often hear the same news, yet see things differently.

Lies at the mind’s door strut in like truth and we seldom verify their identification. Misperception misdirects the mind. Sometimes we’re clinging to the negativity that we think is holding on to us. Our perceptions often diverge from reality and we are totally unaware of the drift. Exaggeration is a degeneration of truth.

Life’s hard when you’re adrift in the rough sea of uncontrolled thoughts and feelings. The truth about reality is: “You can’t make this stuff up!” You can align with reality or deny it, but you can’t refashion reality. 

Careless perception is confusing. Careful perception is clarifying. Feelings confuse the line between right and wrong. Conscience clarifies it. Reality supersedes perception.

The promise of persecution for Christ-followers

If you find Christianity boring, you’re not connecting with the living Jesus! “Behold the Lamb of God.” Dare to see more of the risen Jesus than you have before. Believing what you’ve been taught about Jesus, doesn’t mean you know and have experienced Him personally.

To hear about the life of Jesus is inspiring. To daily live it is supernatural. In the Gospels, Jesus calls His followers to self-denial, not to self-defense. 

Christ-followers are promised persecution. Biblical Christianity is persecuted by religion (and by atheistic countries) because it presents Jesus as alive, present, and active in today’s world. Jesus said that it’s a blessing to be persecuted for following Him. However, Christians are never told to be persecutors. Insecure people persecute others. Secure people embrace them.

Jesus created an interactive, spiritual community, that gradually morphed into tens of thousands of independent religious organizations. They are called churches.

Kindness isn’t optional for a Christian. “The Lord’s servant . . . must be kind to everyone.” –2 Timothy 2:24. We can choose not to insult people. We can choose to be kind. Dare we?

Light words, weighty with wisdom, shine hope into pondering hearts. Seek to see with Christ’s sight. Life’s so much brighter in His light! To repent is to shift your gears of perception and begin to see from God’s viewpoint. The wonders of the world start in your own backyard.

Put Christ back in “ianity”

Churchianity’s been around for centuries. Now we have politicsianity. Let’s put Christ back in ianity. Christianity without love for all people, is counterfeit.

To keep the rust off of my trust in God, I have to put the living Jesus first! Love sees things differently than hate. Let the living Jesus give you eyes of love.

When human hopes totter,
The sky seems to be falling,
Yet "Christ in you,"
The insider Jesus,
Remains "the hope of glory."

Too many Christians are Christ-informed rather than Christ-formed. It’s much more important to be Spirit-led than to be preacher-fed. Romans 8:14. Religious structure, teaching, and organization, often pushes aside the living Jesus. The failure to perceive the living Jesus at work, motivates Christians to exert their own will.

Christianity is a way of life, not a Sunday morning religious session or a political persuasion. True Christianity is based on the perception of Jesus, not on our feelings and opinions.

Everything that happens works for my good. Trusting that Bible truth makes me happy. Grace enables repentance, God’s forgiveness, freedom from guilt, & surrender to Jesus.

Jesus spoke against hierarchy. He didn’t approve of a ranked ordering of people. Because the kingdom of God is invisible to physical eyes, it’s hard to resist giving our heart to a human government. The name I want on banners is Jesus!