Steve Simms's Blog, page 247
July 10, 2019
Jeepers Creepers (a light-hearted poem)
(a light-hearted poem)
People trend to be
Spiritual spelunkers,
Cave creatures,
Creeping through darkness
Avoiding God's light.
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July 9, 2019
Quick thoughts for strength and power
If you win with a guilty conscience, deep down, you know you really lost.
Pride isn’t strength. It’s a bluff to cover-up weakness. True strength often comes in disguises: kindness, compassion, tears, forgiveness, vulnerabliity, humility, and openness.
Strong people aren’t dependent on other people’s approval or respect.
Kindness in the face of hostility requires faith and love. Retaliation only requires anger and offense.
Rude people need love. Retaliation just makes them ruder and ruder. The Bible says that we “must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone.” 2 Timothy 2:24
Only the weak can thrive with God. The strong think they don’t need Him.
To live with your heart shut down is to miss out on life’s most amazing experiences. To keep an kind, open heart in a cruel, uncivil world requires much courage.
The greatest strength is surrender to God. (“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”)
We can’t program the wind (of the Holy Spirit)
I love it when Christ-followers meet together like pinwheels and let the wind of the Holy Spirit freely move them and direct them. Then I see clear demonstrations of Jesus’ presence and power among them as they minister to one another as prompted by the Spirit!
No amount of lectures about the wind can replace walking in the breeze to feel the wind on your face. (Same with the Holy Spirit.
Trying to program the Holy Spirit is like trying to program the wind. Instead, open hearts can let the Spirit freely flow.
Our good works tend to lead us to pride and self-congratulation. The Holy Spirit working in and thru us will fill us with awe and humility.
Being actively led by the Spirit is radically different than sitting passively thru a sermon. Sounds and sights clash and flash, yet it’s incomplete to only hear and see physically, and not also with the ears and eyes of the heart.
You will know the Spirit is moving by the fruit. The fruit of the Spirit ISN’T: indifference, sadness, hostility, impatience, unkindness, badness, unfaithfulness, roughness, self-indulgence.
Christians don’t need another talk about prayer; we need to pray. The same is true with love and other Bible exhortations. Daily listen to the Holy Spirit and read the Bible. Both will speak to you at a profound level if you will.
Hearing preaching about what you need to do, won’t make you new. That takes letting the Holy Spirit live and move daily in and thru you. A church that presents talks about Christ without serving Him is like a restaurant that talks about food without serving any.
–A Word About Sermons–
Words heard
But not done
Are the same
As hearing none.
For more, check out my book. Search for: Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible–Ekklesia.
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July 7, 2019
Red and yellow, black and white–there’s no color supremacy!
The idea that one skin color outranks another is myth, manipulation, and madness. Skin-color has nothing to do with the quality of a human being. Absolutely nothing!
To call a certain skin color unacceptable and use it as justification for human trafficking was a terrible evil in history. When a nation’s culture and institutions were based on color-hierarchy for centuries, changing laws won’t magically bring equality.
America’s history of extreme racial cruelty shouldn’t get an “IGNORE-ME-PASS” just because it’s in the past. It’s time to talk about it so we can heal our racial wounds.
The religion involved in America’s founding failed to teach “love your neighbor as yourself” and accepted human trafficking. Some people say, let’s forget about that and not mention it. However, Paul of Tarsus says: “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man.” He doesn’t refuse to talk about his dark past. America shouldn’t refuse to talk about ours either!
Looking over American history, the most heroic people to me were the runaway slaves who courageously sought freedom! They should be celebrated!
For more thoughts about racial equality, diversity, and justice, search for: Off the RACE Track–From Color Blind to Color Kind. Thank you!
Good person? Good God!
People who say, “I’m a good person,” may be giving themselves a pass. They’re probably overlooking many things that they have thought, said or done. No one is good but God!
When feelings dominate behavior, life becomes an enslaver, holding us in bondage to our desires. It’s easy to follow our feelings and desires. It’s much more difficult to acknowledge truth that contradicts them.
Some thoughts should be treasured; some thoughts should be rejected. It’s good to know the difference. Paul of Tarsus says that if we ignore our conscience, we can suffer “shipwreck with regard to the faith.”
It’s easy to say, “I’m a good person,” yet hard to truly be good, though we know we should and wish we could. We need a new heart. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” describes our moral condition. Conscience is the “Life Alert” warning that we need to surrender to Christ.
Conscience says “Be good.”
Guilt says “We can’t.”
Religion says “Try harder.”
Jesus says “Surrender to Me.”
Dishonesty is dysfunctional and denies truth for self-serving deceptions. However, Christ, living in you, changes your behavior from the inside out, and you can no longer be comfortable doing things you used to do.
Jesus doesn’t just offer forgiveness. He offers to graciously indwell, energize, and empower us to follow and obey Him. To be full of Christ is the cure for being “full of it” or “full of yourself.” “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
One reason people don’t like to read the Bible is that it challenges our feelings, desires, and opinions. (As for me, I need that.) The Bible’s about lifestyle as much as theology. It doesn’t just need to be preached in church; it needs to be lived out daily.
The Bible says that Christians should “teach and admonish one another.” Church doesn’t encourage that, but Facebook, Twitter, and other social media do. We don’t have to settle for religious rigidity when God offers the gift of Spirit-led fluidity. Genuine Christ-followers carry the risen Jesus within. When they meet, Jesus can speak through any of them, not just a preacher.
Christianity isn’t about just getting into Heaven. It’s about Jesus indwelling human beings and releasing Heaven into us.
July 4, 2019
The truest patriotism
The truest patriotism is to treat everyone with the eternal values of freedom, equality, and justice, stated in American documents.
All nations are temporary forms of government that exist for days, years, generations, or centuries, and then vanish away. However, God’s values last forever.
No country has permanent residents. We all reside only temporarily in the nation of our birth (or choice).
Freedom isn’t getting the laws you want passed. It’s getting to express your opinions about laws without government harassment.
As nations rise and fall,
Eternal principles call
For the loyalty of all:
Truth, compassion, mercy, love.
July 3, 2019
Can I say that? Oops, I just did!
I’ve never been content with repetitive religion that seems to stay at the same level every week. Give me ever increasing fire.
When political parties are polarized and continually threatening each other, democracy declines into a mudslinging tug-of-war.
Freedom of belief leads to disagreement. Love is kind. It respects people’s right to disagree with your beliefs.
Although nations rise and fall, like lines of dominoes in time, Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
There is one government that is always just and righteous — the Kingdom of God.
If only the natural world exists, being driven by cravings is normal; but if supernatural power exists, we can overcome them.
A legal “right” to choose to do wrong can never make wrongdoing morally right.
You can’t be prochoice and be against people’s right to choose to believe what the Bible says.
All spin, all deception, and all lies create and spread fake news.
Our culture (even religious culture) has trained us to be mostly unaware of the presence and activity of God.
Your conscience can be loud or very quiet. You control the volume.
Lies can rise up to disguise and distort truth, but they can’t cause its demise. Truth never dies!
When God puts a man and woman together, you even annoy each other in ways that make you both better.
Prayer is incomplete without a heart full of surrender and daily obedience to God.
Can I say that? Oops, I just did!
Words paint 1,000 pictures . . .
Words are brush strokes that can decorate your soul with beauty or stain it with blight. You’re the painter.
Words paint a thousand pictures on our soul, yet we hear and say them so carelessly.
Much instruction & little implementation call for a “Jesus surge”
Much instruction and little implementation make Christianity a dull endeavor. Tell me and I forget, even if you preach to me weekly. Help me implement biblical revelation and I’ll be a daring doer of the word.
Lectures about electricity won’t turn on a single light. Neither will lectures about God. To be theologized by teaching and tradition, yet not energized by the living Jesus, misses the point of Christianity.
To hear and understand the good news about Jesus, but not feel Him energizing you from within, is to miss the thrill of the Gospel. Like the blood that keeps me physically alive, Jesus surges thru and energizes my spirit.
Hearing a sermon can be a spiritual step, but without heartfelt meditation and actual implementation, it won’t take you very far. When the preacher preaches it, but doesn’t train people to do it, they come back week by week wanting him to “preach it” again. The Sunday morning hearer habit has made it hard for Christians to be “doers of the word” by promoting comfortable passivity.
Surrendering to dependence on the living God is much more powerful than pursuing independence from Him. To come to God for mercy and forgiveness is life changing. To come demanding approval can be quite stressful.
Biblical Christianity is about surrender — laying down your will and desires to hear and obey the risen Jesus. Somehow the biblical concept of the body of Christ morphed into the idea of one man speaking to a passive group of spectators.
Christians thrive in an environment where they are individually free to listen to and obey the risen Jesus, together. However, Christians without God’s power are like a car with no gas — really good at going downhill. Too many people are living off God’s grid — disconnected from His power.
The best measure of a Christian life isn’t church attendance, but intimacy with, passion for, and obedience to the risen Jesus. Discipleship shows people the risen Jesus, trains them to hear and obey Him, and actively involves them in radically following Him. A true disciple is someone who has been transformed from self-interest to Christ-focus — from daily pride to deep humility. In the Bible, salvation includes radical discipleship. Discipleship isn’t an add-on, an option, or an extra.
True Christianity transforms your desires to align with Christ. It doesn’t endorse aligning your behaviors to your desires. It’s normal to settle into a pattern and/or a comfort zone, but Jesus calls people to follow Him into uncharted situations. Jesus said, “I am the way,” but it’s easier to follow programs, curriculum, liturgy, and preachers.
Your conscience often tells you things that you don’t want to hear, therefore it’s not just your own thoughts. Perhaps it is God calling you to listen to Him.
Jesus invites us to experience joys and glories of Heaven here and now. We don’t have to only imagine.
Grace doesn’t mean that there’s nothing for you to do. Grace means: GET GOING IN THE FREE GIFT OF GOD’S POWER! If instead, you overfeed your desires and continually dance to their tune, they will transform into monsters. Behavior driven by desires, feelings, and self-focus, falls far short of behavior prompted & energized by Christ.
Since church services aren’t available most hours of the week, Christ-followers need to learn to hear and obey Jesus on their own. My book can help you do that. Search for: Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience the Lost Word of the Bible–Ekklesia.
War? Thinking it through . . .
If a famous American general can say, “War is hell,” the rest of us should be able to also look at war in an honest, non-nationalistic way. Here are a few of my original thoughts about war.
If you think about it without nationalistic pride, war seems to cause far more death, destruction, pain, and evil, than it prevents.
War is countless cruelties committed for a country’s cause.
In war people set aside their conscience to obey the orders of a person who out ranks them.
War is more kill than thrill — more gory than glory.
Evil is in all human beings. Perhaps, the best way to fight it is for each individual to start within.
It’s easy to see evil in other people and other nations. It’s much harder to see evil in ourselves and our nation
