Steve Simms's Blog, page 221

Self-e (as in ego) — my thoughts on the subject of “self”

Self-focused eyes have limited vision. Perhaps finding love, joy, peace, and hope is more important than “finding yourself.” Everybody needs something to think about and focus on, other than self.

To think outside yourself, it helps to listen to someone who thinks differently than you and to try to see from their perspective. Selfless moments are joyful, not sacrificial. The blindfold of self-concern is set aside and dazzling light dances in the heart.

You can find
Peace of mind
When self interests
Are left behind.

Trying to find yourself is frustrating. Searching for a meaningful way to be of service to others is liberating!

If you improve your circumstances, but don’t change yourself, your situation may be better, but you won’t be. To lose yourself in a worthy cause is to find peace and joy that self-focus can never provide.

The bad things happening inside our heart are an even greater threat to our well being than the bad things going on around us.

Pride is self-deception, making us believe that we are better than we really are. Conscience calls us back to truth and humility. Self-focus causes us to be easily offended.

Self is an inner prison that keeps you from appreciating the beauty around you and the image of God in other people. Self-focus tends to ignore or resist God’s will. Humility and brokenness no longer trust self, but seek the will of God instead.

Self-pursuit is exhausting. Self-knowledge is discouraging. Moving on from self to pursue and get to know Christ, produces hope.

Promptings from self are usually a mixture of good and evil. Promptings from the living God are always good.

What you say about other people communicates more about yourself than it does about them. Humility faces reality. Pride replaces it with self-deception.

Focusing on our desires, feelings and opinions distracts us from giving our full attention to the internally empowering Jesus. The more I know myself, the more I realize my great need to continually follow the living Jesus Christ. To live my way is a far cry from living Christ’s way.

Christians aren’t called to follow and obey self. We are called to align with the risen Jesus. The inner voices of self, temptation, and God compete for your allegiance. Your lifestyle shows who you’re listening to. God loves you so much that He wants to free you from self-deception, self-torment, and self-destruction.

When I’m focused on the living Jesus, life is amazing! When I’m focused on myself, it’s frustrating. Since God created me, He does a far greater job of leading me than I do of leading myself, yet often, I still want to resist Him.

Few people doubt the existence of self — a conscious, nonmaterial, rational, emotive, choice making, strong willed, inner entity. Most of us have fought many battles with self. I believe in human consciousness because I experience it daily. I believe that Jesus is alive because I experience Him daily.

Perhaps its time to cut any unbiblical cord (that violates Scripture) in your life. When self leads one way and God leads another, our choice shows the true loyalty of our heart.

A nonfriction life is fiction. Something will always rub you the wrong way, but don’t let it ruin your day.

The internally empowering Jesus needs no middleman

When we cut out the middleman and let the living Jesus directly empower us from within, Christianity rises to new levels of glory. What people say and do, shows the world whether or not they are surrendered to the internally empowering Jesus.

People follow invisible things, thoughts and feelings. The internally empowering Jesus is also invisible. I seek to follow Him.

The most effective empowerment is both internal and supernatural. That’s what the risen Jesus wants to do for you. The best reforms are the ones that He wants to make inside of you.

When you’re discouraged let the internally empowering Jesus shift your heart into Spirit-drive. When I feel weak and powerless, I humbly ask God for help and the internally empowering Jesus rises up within me. He causes me to see the image of God in all people and gives me supernatural love for everybody.

The internally empowering Jesus is limited if you make Him your passenger. However, if you let Him in the driver’s seat, you’ll cruise to freedom! Like a hand puppet in a puppet show, let the internally empowering Jesus animate you by living in and thru you. (If you let the living Jesus fully control what you say and do, would you still be saying and doing what you are now?)

The internally empowering Jesus can give you the amazing ability to freely forgive and bless everybody who’s ever done you wrong. He can break the chains of sin-crusted cravings, habits, and addictions.

I discovered that I can’t obey God in my own power. I need the internally empowering Jesus to live in and thru me. Self-empowerment is a myth. Self-focus exhausts power. It doesn’t enhance it. Focus on a purpose beyond yourself is empowering.

To be internally empowered, let the risen Jesus live inside and flow thru you. The internally empowering Jesus is “the hope of glory”! He can set you free from bondage that has buffeted you for years. Surrender to Him and see!

The formalized Jesus can hide the living Jesus from our eyes, but we can look beyond an institution and see Him with our intuition. Formalized Christianity tends to make people passive, but the internally empowering Jesus stirs people into action.

Formalized Christianity seems to encourage spiritual distancing, instead of encouraging open hearts passionately surrendering to the risen Jesus. Pentecost disrupted formalism and thrust the first Christians into ongoing mystical experiences with the internally empowering Jesus.

The “mystery” of Early Christianity is the internally empowering Jesus: “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial & remembering 3 short poems

The first week in March, I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall with the names of 58,267 people of my generation who were killed or missing in that war. This morning I woke up remembering 3 short poems that I wrote about 50 years ago.

ROTC Drill at the University of Tennessee Martin

The thunder of 2,000 feet
Shakes the surface of my mind.
If we could only find,
The key to love and brotherhood,
Instead of joining opposing teams,
And as it seems,
Preparing to annihilate
Each other.



The Meeting

Two soldiers thrust
Their bloody bayonets,
Baring their hearts
And uncovering the mirror.
Two frowning faces,
Four moist eyes,
Meet the awaiting dust,
With a single thud.



Vietnam Field -- Green Was Made Red

Green was made red,
In the middle of the summer,
With the sun so bright in the sky.
The field was so green;
I think it was rice,
Nourishment for the bodies
That are scattered amongst it,
Red.

After posting this, I looked at my blog stats for today and saw that I have one reader from Vietnam. As far as I remember, that’s the first time I’ve seen a reader from Vietnam on my blog. The timing on that seems pretty amazing.

Insults & accusations give birth to fake news

To pride, all insults matter, but humility hardly notices them. When people call you a name on social media, don’t answer to it.

Insults are seldom honest. Their goal isn’t truth, but pain. When people insult you, it reveals weakness in them. It shows that they are afraid of you or of your ideas.

Making unproven accusations is reckless and unkind. Shooting insults and disrespect back and forth like a tennis match, seems to me like a way to cause a lot of pointless pain.

Insulting someone is like spitting into the wind. Insults and accusations give birth to fake news To avoid getting caught up in false accusations and fake news, listen to your conscience, to God’s “still, small voice,” and read the Bible with a humble, open heart.

If an accusation is true, show mercy. If it’s false, renounce it and vindicate the accused. If it’s questionable, keep silent.

It’s often hard to see beyond people’s words and behaviors (and your desire to insult them) and to recognize the image of God in them, but life is better when you do.

The interactive Jesus

When Christ is living in you, faith becomes a close and ongoing relationship between you and the interactive Jesus. The interactive Jesus speaks your language. You don’t need a religious interpreter between you and Him. Jesus can be alive and powerful in your life, but to get beyond passive religion, you need to begin to daily interact with Him.

When you connect with the interactive Jesus, your heart begins to flow with His presence and you find yourself loving everybody. Church follows the same pattern every week, but the interactive Jesus continually surprises people with life-changing power.

People want and need personal connection with others. The ultimate fulfillment of that is full surrender to the interactive Jesus. Friendship with the living Jesus is far more than religious sentiment. It is heart-to-heart connection and continual interaction with Him. Staying daily engaged with the interactive Jesus is radically different than hearing a weekly lecture about His attributes.

Following the interactive Jesus involves “call and response.” He prompts and you listen and respond in obedience. He always looks for your response to His voice and His actions. Ignoring His presence quenches His Spirit. Religious tradition has trained people to be unresponsive to the presence and voice of the interactive Jesus.

To isolate from the interactive Jesus is to insulate yourself His presence and power. The interactive Jesus can untangle your heart & heal your hurts. He wants you to cooperate with His total takeover of your life from the inside out and let Him be your Lord! All Christians are called to be inhabited and directed by the interactive Jesus.

The interactive Jesus is speaking. “My sheep hear My voice.” Are you listening? I find a relationship with the interactive Jesus to be the most absorbing, addicting, and amazing thing on earth!

Early Christianity gradually began to replace the interactive Jesus with the formalized Jesus. Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

Christians are called to be peacemakers, not accusers . . .

The living Jesus calls us to reach people with His love, not to defeat them with our political views. He said: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Bless those who curse you,” and “Love your enemies.” I think He meant it.

Christians are called to proclaim, worship, and obey the risen Jesus, not to accuse and insult people. We are called to introduce people to the living Jesus, not to win arguments with them.

Religion tries to define God and contain Him in an organizational hierarchy. We might as well claim that we control the wind. By formalizing faith into a religious format, it’s easy to forgo the fire of the Holy Spirit.

People can see nature’s beauty and be in awe (without needing a lecture). A sermon isn’t necessary to experience the risen Jesus. Saul of Tarsus met the living Jesus without going to church or hearing a sermon. You can, too.

In the Bible, Jesus’ supporters weren’t the official religious people (Sadducees and Pharisees). They didn’t want a living Jesus. Saul of Tarsus gave up his official religious affiliation (Pharisee) to follow and obey the risen Jesus (as “Paul”).

What good is a “do over” if you keep doing the same things over and over? Let the interactive Jesus interrupt your patterns.

Religion is usually prepared, prepackaged, and served up for us. However, Jesus said that we must “seek” the kingdom of God. Christianity is much more than a one-time “salvation” experience or good church attendance. It’s continual interaction with Jesus.

Faith seeks to align with and trust the living God. Religion tries to align God with its belief and trust an organizational structure. Both an atheist who believes in God and a Christian who rejects biblical Christianity, have their terms confused.

Past joys remain somewhere in your heart. Locate and remember them. Then they will make you smile today.

The question that changed my life . . .

Sitting in church once,
Thinking I was a Christian,
This question came to me:
“If you were born a Hindu,
What would you be today?”
After some thought, I answered,
“I’d be a Hindu.”
Then another thought
Pounced into my brain,
“Why do you think you’re a Christian?”
Suddenly I realized I wasn’t really one.
Two years later I met the risen Jesus
And He put His fire in my soul.
Everyday since then,
I’ve seen Him do
And heard Him say
Many amazing things!

Invisible rivers flow in the heart, visible ones in the eyes

Jesus promised His followers rivers of living water flowing from within them, not watered down ideas from outside them. Religious words without spiritual renewal have little effect. However, when invisible, inner rivers of God’s love, flow thru my heart, visible rivers often flow from my eyes.

The living Jesus is the “Go-To Guy.” “Come unto Me all you who are weary and burdened.” When the risen Jesus is your fuel, His light in your heart, will always burn brightly. (The splendor of Christ clears my heart of the squalor of self-focus.)

Fuel your faith with the living Jesus, not just with theological ideas and religious meetings. To expect listening to someone’s words to keep you going spiritually is like expecting a lecture to power your car.

The risen Jesus is eternal. If you let Him be continually active inside you, you never have to refuel your spiritual gas tank.

If we aren’t fueled with a passion for honesty and truth, we can easily be fooled by our own opinions and desires. When you’re in the middle of nowhere and your fuel gage is on empty, don’t run out of gas; fill up with Jesus! When your fuel runs dry and you feel like a fossil, don’t give up. Put His power in your tank.

The physical world will pass away. True reality is spiritual. Be realistic; be a mystic. Stagnant spirituality should be stirred up by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps you need a personal Pentecost. (Read Acts chapter two.)

Too many Christians want Jesus in the future (Heaven), but prefer limited interaction with Him here and now. A typical church service allows no room for the interventive Jesus to disrupt the present moment.

A falsified life requires so much memory and effort, that it can’t be simply enjoyed. Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

[image error]Invisible rivers are real, too!

Confusion is no illusion. Clarity is a rarity.

It’s easy to think you understand a situation when you don’t. I’ve done it often. As human beings, we don’t accurately know how much we know and how much we don’t know. Plus, we easily get the two confused.

When a thought enters your mind that you didn’t choose to think, that thought isn’t from you. Accepting it as your own will create confusion. If we won’t remove weedy thoughts from our mind, it will be overrun with diversions, distractions, and disturbances.

The heart often sees things clearer than the mind does. To keep your heart clamped down is to embrace confusion.

Pride is easily confused. It holds self up like an ornamental shield (having little strength, but making a flashy show), and believes it is thinking clearly.

Today, tomorrow, and yesterday are all so confusing. I find the least confusing time in life to be the present moment. When you need someone to put some sense into all the nonsense of life, listen to the living, resurrected Jesus Christ.

People aren’t comfortable in confusion so they tend to find someone or some group to blame it on. Self-confusion is so prevalent, saying, Know yourself, is like saying, “Quote the entire Magna Carta from memory.” Instead of trying to know myself, I find much more peace, forgetting about myself and getting to know the risen Jesus better.

Our human emotions are volatile and confusing. It’s best to examine their accuracy before we follow and obey them. Unfortunately, some people are so open minded that they will mind their thoughts and feelings, no matter how irrational or harmful they are.

Confusing times call for clarity. The more I surrender to the living Jesus, the clearer my life becomes. A single flash of His insight can replace a confused mind and troubled heart, with inner peace. “Be still and know that I am God.” When I don’t understand, I stand under the empty Cross and trust the risen Jesus.

Understanding is overrated. Everyday we use and enjoy many things we don’t understand (like digital technology & electricity).

Anger is overrated. Too often we use it as a mask to hide our insecurities. Confusion causes too many people discard their best cards and keep their worst ones in their hand.

Confusion even works on a national level. A great country isn’t divided into hostile camps. To spread anger and distrust is to diminish greatness.

The longer you try to make your conscience go along with your opinions and feelings, the more confused you will be. The best antidotes I’ve found for confusion are: reading the Bible with an open heart, listening to Jesus, and praying in tongues.

Thinkercise to make mental waves

Writing is simply making your thoughts retrievable to readers or listeners. If you post anything original on social media, you’re a writer. My favorite writing is when someone uses uplifting, yet ordinary words, to express extraordinary ideas and feelings.

For some of my innovating writing that can help you thinkercise your mind:

Think outside conspiracy theories. Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

Looking for more than religious control and politicized faith? Learn to think outside the physical world. Google: Beyond Church Ekklesia.

To boast about some history while telling people to ignore other history is inconsistent. Search: Off the RACE Track book.