Steve Simms's Blog, page 236

Have explanations destroyed the fun & mystery of Western Christianity?

Life is full of wonders and mysteries that make us say “Wow!” If you’re not frequently saying a heart-felt “Wow!” you’re missing a lot!

I do illusions, but don’t share their secrets. Explanations destroy their fun and mystery. That’s happened to much of Christianity.

Love’s a mystery. If you figure it out, organize and systematize it, it’s no longer love. That’s also happened to much of Christianity. God’s revelation happens in the heart, not in the head.

Action without intent is meaningless. Don’t just do something; do what makes your life meaningful. Christians are called to be more than “just human.” We’re called to be “led by the Spirit” and to “walk by the Spirit.”

When you realize we’re all influenced by myth and mirage and mistaken perception, it’s easier to show compassion and mercy to others.

Want to get back to the joy that Jesus talked about in the Bible? Search for my book: The Joy Of Early Christianity.

Human nature or Holy Spirit — the choice is ours

Christ offers an alternative to our human nature — to live His life in and thru us. Thus we can live by the flesh or by the Spirit. Christians are called to overcome their sin, not to settle in with their sin. If you refuse to refute, renounce, and reject negative and/or sinful thoughts, they will continue to torment you.

Misbehaving is bad for mental health, opening the door to guilt and its repercussions. However, Jesus is my Uber. Hanging out with Him drives me to sanity, peace, and joy — where He wants me to be.

Jesus said, ““Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Change your perspective and begin to see from God’s point of view!

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” But lies will paralyze, imprison, and torment you. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “The way” means that we need to list en to Him and do what He says. “The trut h” means that we should avoid being dishonest because dis honesty denies the trut h. “The life” means that you need to let Jesus live in and animate you.

A completely clear conscience can’t be created by good works or religion. It is the result of receiving Christ’s forgiveness.

Go beyond religious explanations & begin to enjoy Jesus!

Christ can be explained to the mind, but to daily experience Him requires a surrendered and obedient heart. A closed heart has little perception of God’s glorious light. It is a deception to believe that you can’t be deceived.

Scholasticism has greatly quenched the Holy Spirit in Western Christianity. We want to figure God out, not to summit in humble obedience to Him. Religious analytics have often replaced Spirit-prompted interaction with the risen Jesus.

The Bible proclaims that we can be directly taught by the Holy Spirit. It also says that we are to “eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit” which are supernatural manifestations of Christ’s presence. However, Christian doctrine without Christian experience is like learning facts about Tokyo, Japan, but never spending any time there.

Christ-followers need more than information, ritual, and techniques. We need surrender and obedience to the risen Jesus. Christianity is about spiritual life. Without spiritual life it becomes a powerless “form of godliness.” Daily experiencing the risen Jesus is far more powerful than any amount of religious explanations can ever be.

When you show kindness and compassion to others in the name of Jesus, spiritual gifts will manifest without your effort. Then the joy of the Lord will flow from within you. For more about the gifts of the Spirit and how to experience them in your daily life, search Amazon for my book: The Joy Of Early Christianity.

As humans we can choose to be carried by the waves of the Holy Spirit or get caught in the undertow of our feelings. Self and God often lead us in different directions, so it’s important to choose which one we follow. When you lose faith in yourself, you can begin to fully trust in God. It’s hard to accept truth that insults your ego, but Jesus said, “Deny yourself.”

When members of the body of Christ begin to act together, under the direct leadership of the Spirit, God’s presence is revealed. I saw a sermon advertised as, “The Day Jesus Came To Church.” Shouldn’t that be every meeting?

Minds need filters . . .

An unfiltered mind is a murky mixture of good and evil. Be a filter. My mind works better when I use my inner filter to keep spam, profanity, disrespect, anger, hate and other disruptive thoughts out.

Keep wrongful thoughts out of your mind while letting wholesome ones freely flow. A mind without a filter is a chaotic and continually confused. Sometimes what we think is stress overload is our overlooking to filter out our tormenting thoughts.

Filter your media consumption. Reject negative, tormenting, and/or evil words. Embrace positive, healing, and/or wholesome ones. Make your mind a sponge with a filter. Soak up all the good you can while filtering out all the bad you can.

Following your conscience can help keep your mind from being a murky place — a hazy hatchery of twisted inner torment.

Filter out pride. Pride is the prison that incarcerates us in stubborn self-focus until humility grants us a parole.

If your speech is impure, your heart and mind will be too.

Christianity should never be without awe!

Christianity need never be without awe, miracles, wonders, spiritual gifts, and other direct interactions with the living Jesus. I don’t know how anybody can experience Jesus daily and not be continually thrilled about Him.

The Holy Spirit is the world’s best leader. He can do incredible things in and thru you, if you will listen to and obey Him. If you ignore the Holy Spirit, you quench Him and keep Him from doing all He wants to do. “Quench not the Spirit.”

“Christ in you,” (listen to Him with your inner ear and do what He tells you) “the hope of glory.” When the body of Christ gathers to let everyone listen to and obey the living Jesus, His direct leadership will be noticed by all.

Religion seldom lets Christ-followers obey Colossians 3:16, “Teach and admonish one another,” but social media does! When Jesus’ inner rivers of living water are allowed to freely flow, they will continually purify your mind and heart.

Many people promote ministries named after themselves, but the most important ministry is the Holy Spirit’s and He exalts Jesus. The early Christians preached Jesus “everywhere,” not just in special buildings.

Like Uber, God wants to give you a lift, (but to where He wants to go). The whole truth is: God loves you, but your sin and self-destruction break His heart. Airlines are great preachers. They’re always reminding us to think about our “final destination.”

Giving thanks directly to Jesus on Thanksgiving 2019

Jesus on the outside or Jesus internalized?

Jesus on the outside is a religious subject, but Jesus living on the inside is fire in the bones — God’s internal combustion! Christian concepts can fill the mind, yet can leave the heart apathetic, but connection with the risen Jesus, always sets the heart on fire!

For Christ to change you, it’s not enough to hear about Him in your mind. He also must be internalized in your heart. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Without Christ internalized, hope hides and is hard to hold on to.

To absorb information about Jesus, but neglect to internalize His presence, is to consent to casual, compromised Christianity. To internalize Jesus, allow Him to dive below your mind, rearrange your soul, and establish His eternal kingdom there. Instead of internalizing things, internalize the living Jesus!

When Christ is internalized and woven into your soul, you’ll never be the same! An internal relationship with the living Jesus will flood your soul with incredible inspiration and insight! To internalize Christ is a new way of being — a supernatural lifestyle that rises up and flows from deep within you.

Christ in you will manifest Himself by ongoing improvements in your attitude, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and choices. Experience the wondrous joy of internalizing the risen Jesus. (Search Amazon for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.)

If we deny ourselves and lose our egos, we can become free to flow with Christ and go where He goes. If we won’t bend with God’s wind and let His Spirit lead us, we’ll stay stuck in the muck of self. The closer my relationship with Jesus, the more I want to be even closer to Him!

“Judge not,” doesn’t mean “applaud wrong”

“Judge not,” doesn’t mean that we should applaud unethical behavior.

If I hadn’t earned God’s judgment, I wouldn’t need His grace. “The wages of sin is death.”

The Good News isn’t that God’s okay with your behaviors. It’s that God’s ready to forgive your sins and help you get free from them. Christianity isn’t about productivity. You’re the product. God is trying to make you like Jesus. Will you let Him?

God is love, but to receive God’s love, we need to repent and remove any thoughts and behaviors that are blocking us from connecting with His love. No human is free from the temptation to think, say, and do evil. We all need to guard our heart, words, and behaviors.

The worldwide-prenatal-holocaust is applauded by many who claim to be human rights advocates. If taking human lives to prevent them from being born isn’t unethical, what is?

If we fail to see that racism is horrifying, we’r e blind to history. I recently read George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Proclamation” of 1789 where he says that we should pray for God “to render our national government a blessing to all the people,” while it was vigorously supporting the holding (at that time) of about 700,000 innocent people in America in lifelong bondage. If George was serious about the national government being “a blessing to all the people,” he would have made his own Emancipation Proclamation to free those slaves & he would have also liberated the people he was personally human trafficking. Learn more about the cruelty of American slaveholding. Search for: Off the RACE Track book.

Maybe cussing isn’t a sign of strength, but rather a display of lack of self-control. If you don’t let garbage pile up in your house, perhaps it’s good to keep it out of your mind as well.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Perhaps we shouldn’t confuse it with a human government or organization.

Embracing the biblical/Protestant concept of the priesthood of the believer

I have invented a new word for the priesthood of the believer — clergyall. Here’s another way to put it: Christian meetings are full of manysters, not just a single minister.

Jesus is alive and present when we meet in His name, so we can all listen to Him and then each one say and do what He leads us to. If we talk about Jesus like He’s not present and active in the room, we can cause people to miss out on hearing Him for themselves. I need to personally interact with, listen to, and obey Jesus for myself, not just hear talks about Him!

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and let Jesus live in and flow thru you! Do ministry in His name! Understanding the theological Jesus is good. Getting to know the experiential Jesus is even better! Letting Jesus live in you and touch people thru you is better still!

Christians say that Jesus is the way, but then church tends to encourage people to follow programs, preachers, churches, and even politicians. Christianity, without strong feelings for Christ and obedience to Him, is hollow.

When Christians meet to collectively surrender control to the risen Jesus and let Him speak thru anybody present, that’s the biblical ekklesia! Ekklesia is about empowering and releasing people to internalize Jesus and to demonstrate His presence.

There is only one body of Christ operating on the earth. If you’re a Christ-follower, you’re a member of it and called to an active, Spirit-led role in it.

Contemporary Christianity uses lots of titles, but we seem to neglect the most important ones like: “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords.” If Christians lifted up the name of Jesus as much as we lift up the names of preachers and religious celebrities, we’d see revival.

The body of Christ should be an orchestra making spiritual music together

Too often the orchestra of the body of Christ, called to make spiritual music under His direction, is turned into an audience. However, both orchestra members and members of Christ’s body have active roles to play. They were never intended to be a passive audience. The risen Jesus needs to be the only Head of His body — the active Conductor of His spiritual orchestra.

Always preaching to Christians is like lecturing an orchestra. Both need to be making God’s music, not just hearing talks on it. Preaching tells people what to do. Ekklesia establishes an atmosphere where the Holy Spirit can create the desire to do it. Once people have heard the living Jesus proclaimed and have received Him, they need to be trained to listen to and obey His voice. Ekklesia is a collaborative interaction between members of the body of Christ and the risen Jesus.

One musician and an audience doesn’t make an orchestra. One preacher and an audience doesn’t make the body of Christ. One person can’t fully express Christ’s presence when Christians gather. Christ’s body needs to work together like an orchestra. Maybe God composed His word to be fully expressed by the full orchestra of the body of Christ, not by one individual.

New Testament Christianity is to let the risen Jesus live in you and personally direct you day by day. It creates continual companionship with Christ. Christians need to have the freedom to play their own instruments in response to Christ, as He directs His body.

Jesus’ first disciples didn’t follow programs. They followed Him. If Jesus is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” we should follow Him today (not programs) like His first followers did.