Steve Simms's Blog, page 241
October 8, 2019
Blocking negative thoughts (like an offensive lineman)
All thoughts are not created equal. Some thoughts need to be blocked from your brain. If you won’t block harmful thoughts from your mind, they will press in and hurt you. Unblocked, tormenting thoughts will rush your brain and sack your spirit with discouragement.
Football without blocking, turns into chaos. Life without blocking negative thoughts, does too.
One good block can win a football game. One good block that knocks out a tormenting thought, will change your life. Don’t let the devil put a mental block on you. Block him instead!
Wimpy blockers get run over! Block your tormenting thoughts with toughness and passion! Refuse to let a tormenting thought shed your block and get into your mental backfield.
Football teams that aren’t good at blocking, struggle. This also applies to people who aren’t willing to block harmful thoughts. Many people don’t realize that by failing to block mean-spirited and tormenting thoughts, they are blocking their own happiness.
If you aren’t blocking negative and destructive thoughts, they’re blocking you from peace and contentment. Learn to block! Block worry, block fear, block negativity, block hatred, and anything else that tries to torment your mind.
Block unkindness! Keep it out of your heart. Refuse to send it to others. Tormenting thoughts frequently try to enter my mind, but I’ve learned how to block them and keep them out of the backfield.
Be mentally tough! Hold your blocks! Refuse to let harmful thoughts cross your inner line of scrimmage. (Bad thoughts are as hard to block as defensive tackles are.)
If you won’t block your tormenting thoughts, they are going to tackle you. Football players practice with blocking dummies so that when the live action comes they’re ready. Learn to block negativity now!
Make a block for the team. Learn to block your tormenting thoughts so your family and friends won’t suffer from your negativity. Stiff arm your inner negativity. Run over it. Don’t let it run over you!
Block the devil; step aside and make lots of room for Jesus. Be careful not to do the opposite.
If you’re ready to block your harmful thoughts, my book, The Joy Of Early Christianity, will help you. Find it on Amazon.
Here’s a bonus thought: If somebody blocks you on Facebook, perhaps they’re just trying to protect their mind and heart from negativity.
Jackhammer or stethoscope in church
Some Christians approach people with a jackhammer. Perhaps it would be better to use a stethoscope and listen to their heart.
Muzzles and masks make meetings methodological. Open hearts and freedom for Spirit-led expression release healing and compassion.
“Let My people go.” Let the members of the body of Christ be free to listen to and obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
You can think about someone, sing about him, and hear a talk about him, while ignoring him. Try not to do that with Jesus. (I find it difficult to focus on a religious program and the living Jesus at the same time.)
“Prepare the way of the Lord.” Make room for the risen Jesus to take over your mind, your heart, and your behavior. Surrender.
Modern Christianity is too often a tapestry of apathy when it should be a roaring rivers of joy unspeakable and unquenchable love.
Search Amazon for my new book: The Joy Of Early Christianity.
October 6, 2019
31 short (1-sentence) sermons for overcoming anger
Inform, don’t insult.
Dispute without ill repute.
Compassion curtails conflict.
Disagree but delete disrespect.
For constructive conflict, drop contempt.
Debate without hate; there’s no need to berate.
Find a way to say what’s on your mind without being unkind.
Name calling leads to falling into an appalling lack of civility.
Engage with the wisdom of a sage, not with your rage on stage.
Express your opinion without trying to achieve dominion over others.
It’s twice as tough to be nice on your device than it is to be rude and crude.
In an unkind environment, kindness takes courage; you can bee courageous.
Anger and insults are often an attempt to hide a person’s fear and insecurity.
Profanity is loveless and disdainful — shoving your anger and pain onto others.
Love’s not a language but a lifestyle of kindness, compassion, caring for others.
To be great, don’t take any bate that’s a gateway to hate, but show God’s love instead.
If you let conflict restrict your heart and stop your compassion, you’ll soon be fighting dirty.
If you insist on being unkind to people who disagree with you, you’re going to be mean to a lot of people.
If you slice and dice people, your relationships will be as cold as ice; instead be nice.
The more you put down people, the more you’ll have to put up with their retaliation.
Fear and anger often trigger people to say and do cruel and wrongful things instead of being courageous and acting with kindness.
You can differ, oppose, and offer up a different opinion, but you’re not obligated to be obnoxious.
It’s easy to be rude if you feud, to come unglued if your opinions are hued by anger, and to be crude if you’re stewed.
When you speak the truth with love from above, that supernatural love is powerful, healing, and life-changing.
If you verbally attack there’s often a whack coming back, but if you express your view with kindness you can overcome blindness.
To avoid being toxic, take your anger, box it up, and bury it by spreading love and kindness, especially when you don’t feel like it.
Unwind and find a way to be kind when you state your mind because being rude will keep you in a bind.
When some people are labeled “good” and others labeled “bad,” things get ugly, because, like the Bible says, “All have sinned” and need repentance and forgiveness.
If those who are calling people names would closely examine their own heart and secret behaviors, they would be kinder to others.
When people have lost all their hope of resolving a conflict, they tend to lash out in unkindness, but the risen Jesus restores hope.
Human governments are temporary and external, but the kingdom of God is eternal and internal.
October 4, 2019
My Halfway There podcast interview
My new interview on the Halfway There podcast is up & available at this link:
This is from their page:
Stories Steve shared:
Leaving his Salvation Army churchWhy he wrote his book The Joy of Early ChristianityHow resisting negativity is spiritual warfareWhat true abundant life isHow to engage different styles of prayerHow to interact with Jesus all the timeThe ice cream analogyWhy we need to practice our faith not just learn about itWhy he wrote a book on race
Great quotes from Steve:
Church hurt, hurts.
When people are allowed to have a role in Sunday morning, they grow so much faster.
I want to live what they did in the book of Acts.
You can grow as fast as you seek Him.
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October 3, 2019
Do we really need all the anger?
Anger is an acid that eats up peace (both inner peace and peace in society). Anger paralyzes both reason and love, tricking people to act from impulse instead.
Anger is contagious. Don’t allow other people’s anger to make you angry. If we continually allow people to anger us, we soon become “angerous” — full of and controlled by anger.
It’s easy to falsely believe that our anger is 100% righteous and the other guy’s is 100% unrighteous. Anger is easy, but kindness, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness are tough! It’s amazing how so many people believe their anger is justified, but the anger of those who disagree with them isn’t.
The anger you feel is an alarm asking you, “How can I view this situation in a more loving way?” If someone questioning your anger makes you even more angry, perhaps your anger has taken you over.
Anger leads to resentment; resentment to hatred; hatred to mistreatment; mistreatment easily turns into violence. Anger would often prefer to sink the ship rather than share it.
However, we can dislike someone’s policies and behaviors without getting angry at them. You can disagree with kindness. Try it.
Christians are to be led by the Holy Spirit, not by anger. Anger isn’t the fruit of the Spirit — love, patience, and kindness are. When Christians let the Spirit lead them as ekklesia, then healing, repentance, and reconciliation begin to manifest.
The Bible says not to be angry after sunset. (That’s because if you let anger linger inside of you, it will grab hold of your heart and not let go.) Many Christians disobey that verse. (Ephesians 4:26) The Bible also says that love “casts out fear.” Don’t let anger cast out your love.
Even when you’re angry, there’s no need to be insulting and unkind. The Bible says that we should be “speaking the truth in love.” The early Christians had plenty of reasons to angrily insult Roman politicians, but they didn’t. Evil is not in just one political party. “There is none righteous, no not one.”
Happiness and “angriness” are conflicting emotions that are almost impossible to experience at the same moment. Take the “d” in “discernment” and attach it to “anger.” Then let it warn us of the danger in anger.
Get in the joy convoy & out of the anger traffic jam
Christians should be leading a joy convoy, not following anger’s decoy. You can’t be mad and glad at the same moment.
Why not embrace Christ’s joy, instead of your anger? Joy gives us the power to follow the path of kindness, but anger trips everybody up!
Don’t settle for joy like an eye drop. God offers joy like a river! Modern religion demonstrates that promoting Christianity like an organization or a business will tend to destroy its joy.
Letting things that annoy take away your joy is a low level of faith. Early Christians had “joy unspeakable & full of glory.”
Joy means that you don’t have to go to a happy place to feel happy inside! The human heart, when humble, honest, and open, has an amazing ability to joyously connect with God and with other people.
People work so hard trying to experience joy. I’ve found that joy is a gift that comes as I continually surrender to Jesus. The New Testament, written by early Christ-followers, is the most joyous book I know. Though persecuted, they had amazing joy!
Unfortunately, many people think “Christian fun” is any bland, wholesome entertainment. For me it’s the adventure of radically following Jesus everyday!
Early Christianity was exciting, 24/7/365. What happened? Ahoy! It’s time to redeploy joy! For a handbook to help, search Amazon for: The Joy Of Early Christianity.
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September 30, 2019
“right” supremacy — let’s be kind
I believe in right supremacy — that equality, freedom, love, and justice must prevail. Being unkind for political objectives puts expediency over love and justice. An unkind country isn’t a very pleasant place, regardless of its political situation.
The kingdom of God comes by surrender to Jesus, not by political accusations and insults. Jesus said to seek it first!
Jesus said: “Bless those who curse you.” If we aren’t willing to publicly do that, then we’re not fully following Him.
Hitler was so far to the right that he was wrong. Stalin was so far to the left that he was in left field. Let’s be kind!
Society’s problems aren’t caused by the Left or the Right, but by unrepentant sin. Biblically, God’s the good guy and we’re all the bad guys needing God’s forgiveness. Both racism and abortion claim superiority over other human lives.
Christians are called to be revelators, not just spectators
Christians in the Bible met as a community, not as an audience — as revelators not as spectators. They met not to rejoice in things of this world, but to joyously celebrate the presence and reality of the risen Jesus.
Modern sermons tend to be sweet, but if you listen directly to Jesus, He’s going to bring up some touchy subjects. Always being a passive part of a Sunday audience has caused many members of the body of Christ to atrophy into apathy.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are quenched far more often than they’re received. The gifts of the Spirit won’t manifest if we’re unwilling to let them flow by obeying God’s inner promptings. To neglect the gifts of the Holy Spirit is to reject them.
To “walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16) is to live in a state of continual awareness of and surrender to the living God. Try it!
Going through the motions of Christianity in a spiritless manner takes the joy away. For a handbook on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, search Amazon for The Joy Of Early Christianity.
September 28, 2019
Politics & name calling got you feeling down? Get some relief by reading “The Joy Of Early Christianity.”
Politics and name calling
got you feeling down?
Get some relief by reading,
The Joy Of Early Christianity
@ amzn.to/2nvJX2A.
