Steve Simms's Blog, page 255

People are often like an out-of-control Boeing 737 Max

If you won’t get yourself under control, your unrestrained human nature will miss you up. Unrestrained human nature is like an out-of-control Boeing 737 Max. (Two of them crashed because of software problems, an Indonesian one and an Egyptian one.) Perhaps the world’s a mess because we humans need a software upgrade.

As a human, you can upgrade your own software by learning to control your thoughts, desires, and feelings. You don’t have to let them continually control you. However, unchecked and unchallenged thoughts, desires, and feelings will grow so strong that they will take control of a person’s life.

In a world that says “don’t judge,” the Me Too Movement says that some things are morally wrong. Perhaps church should too. Instead, many churches are preaching sugar-coated prosperity, hyper-grace, and “your best life now.”
Religion tries to define who God is, when what we humans really need is to let the living God take control of us and define who we are.

Unrestrained thoughts, desires, and feelings cultivate inner confusion that eventually blows up in outward chaos. Feelings, unchecked by morality and character, are extremely dangerous to mental health. Unbridled thoughts, desires, and feelings are as reckless as a stampede of wild horses. The reason people don’t like to ride unbridled horses is that they lose control; the same thing happens with unbridled desires.

Democracy, human rights, & speaking truth in love

Human rights are standard equipment with human life. They cannot be taken away by any government, (but they can be violated). Oppressed people have as many human rights as anybody, but their government and/or institutions or individuals ignore their rights.

Democracy works better with kind persuasion — “speaking the truth in love.” Bullying and coercion in a democracy are counter productive and tend to cripple it. In a democracy there is room for disagreement and even disapproval, but there should be no room for disenfranchisement.

Sometimes one word defines the difference between a democracy and a mob — civility. When a society loses kindness and respect, the freedom of speech can easily become the so called “freedom” of verbal abuse.

Listening to people with heart-felt concern for their well being will build bridges of compassion across rivers of divisiveness. Compassion is released when you hear people share their struggles and pain. People who don’t want to care won’t listen.

Beyond the labels humans give each other, we’re all people. Ignore the labels and be kind. As people are heard, their pain’s no longer concealed & hearts are healed as truth’s revealed. That’s how we “walk in the light.”

The term “significant others” implies that there are some “insignificant others.” That’s not true.

To be unconscious of your conscience is to jeopardize your mental health. To ease your conscience, begin to align your thoughts, words, and behaviors with it. Wrong often feels better (and more compelling) than right, but that doesn’t make it right.

Politicians are always saying they will fight. Perhaps it would be better if they would work together to get things done. Warfare is always unfair — to soldiers, to civilians, and to nations. Its so called “glory” is a myth.

Don’t wait on your church

Don’t wait on your church. They may never send or release you. Go ahead and do what God is telling you to. (The Bible says to “wait on the Lord.” It never says to “wait on a church.”)

Too many people allow their church to prevent them from doing what God is telling them to do. Try not to do that. It’s rebellious to disobey God (even if your church tells you to).

Too often church is a place of isolation. You can come in feeling alone, unheard, and hurting, and leave feeling alone, unheard, and hurting. Church can be “attended” and left behind during the week. “Christ in you” can’t. Which one is your reality?

Don’t just “like” Christ and go to church. Let Christ make you Christ-like. All preaching to people and no listening to them, makes church a place that ignores the Bible’s 50+ “one another” commandments. Going to church, but not following & obeying Jesus during the week, makes Christianity a lot like April Fools’ Day.

A racist church is an oxymoron that has been far too common through out history. One reason that many Christians didn’t speak out against American slavery is because their church supported it and told then not to. However, Jesus’ view of race is so radical that He used a “hated” Samaritan as a much greater example of love than a Jewish priest.

I don’t believe in the Resurrection of Jesus because I’m a Christian. I’m a Christian because the risen Jesus is my friend. However, too often contemporary Christianity is only in the intellect but doesn’t go below the neck to connect with and perfect the heart. Christianity is about free-flowing, inner “rivers of living water.” It’s not about passively hearing sermons. (See John 7:38)

Church is long on lecturing people, but super short on listening to them (even though the same man preaching to the same people week after week often goes nowhere). “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He didn’t continually lecture us from a pulpit. That’s because lecture and conjecture won’t effect your life nearly as much as a direct touch from God will.

Going to church without maintaining a relationship with Jesus, is like watching a documentary about someone you don’t know. Hearing talks about the Bible can’t compare with putting the Bible into action and experiencing how amazingly it works!

A relationship with Jesus isn’t a one-time encounter, but ongoing, loving interaction with Him that never gets stale. If Christ is who He said He is, it’s crazy not to be crazy about Him!

Run courageously from every desire trying to control your life and from every temptation trying to enslave you. When our eyes are focused on self, our inadequacy overwhelms us.

After the Jesus Movement

After the Jesus movement I spent decades trying to fit into traditional church, but I wasn’t willing to ignore the Holy Spirit. I discovered that Christianity is easier to present as a religious program than it is to live.

The Jesus Movement focused on the presence and personality of a Jesus. It didn’t focus on the presence and personality of a pastor. I learned that a meeting of Christ-followers can be an outpost of God’s kingdom — a gathering free from human control and manipulation. Church meetings controlled by one person tend to make it difficult for people to learn to hear Christ for themselves.

In the Jesus Movement I also learned that hearing a preacher isn’t the same thing as hearing God — not even close! If you learn to directly hear from God in church, then you can hear Him everywhere. However, if you just hear a preacher’s voice in church, you’ll usually forget what he said.

Church services don’t start until a pastor starts them. Perhaps they should wait until Jesus starts them.

It’s more powerful to interact around a campfire than to sit in a lecture hall and hear a talk about fire — same with God’s fire. The Jesus Movement was God’s fire. I’ve never been willing to turn away from that fire.

Church services tend to be a very controlled environment where everyone is compelled to behave the same way and/or sit in silence. However, because the Jesus Movement allowed the risen Jesus to freely express His creativity when we gathered in His name, every meeting was innovative and different.

Early Christians seem to have met as an interactive body of believers under the direct Headship/Lordship of the living Jesus. (So did the early days of the Jesus Movement.)

Learning from a black bus driver . . .

Sitting in a parked bus alone with a black bus driver, I began to tell him about my book, Off the RACE Track. After more than an hour, he began to open up to me. About that time a white coworker walked on the bus, sat down, and listened in. The 70 year old bus driver began to tell us about how when he was a child his mother, a nurse, would take him downtown with her. Tears came to his eyes as he told me that they weren’t allowed to eat in any restaurant.

The white guy chimed in, “But things are better now, right?” The bus driver replied, “Yes, things are better.” Then the white guy got up and left the bus. A person’s racial pain shouldn’t be brushed aside so easily.

My heart was deeply touched as the driver continued to tell me stories of his pain. When I got home and began to share his stories with my wife, I began to weep.

When racism is gone, gone, gone . . .

When racism’s gone, skin color will be like eye color, noticed, but not definitive of people’s behavior or character.

When racism’s gone, pain suffered from color-prejudice will be seen with compassion, not brushed aside as insignificant.

When racism’s gone, color diversity will be viewed as a valuable asset to be cultivated, not as a threat to be avoided.

When racism is gone, no one will need to deny being a racist.

When racism’s gone, people of one skin color won’t be seen as more criminal than people of another.

When racism is gone, color-based innuendo will be a thing of the past.

When racism is gone, color-based disparities will be considered with concern, compassion, and the desire to overcome them.

When racism’s gone, open discussions about America’s history of color-based injustice, will no longer be considered taboo.

When racism’s gone, protesting injustice won’t be called “identity politics,” “race baiting,” or “playing the race card.”

When racism is gone, Americans will be willing to confront the racial injustice in our history.

When racism’s gone, the color-based injustices in American history will no longer be ignored or defended, but openly admitted.

When racism’s gone, all the slaveholders in American history will be known as human traffickers.

When racism’s gone, America’s historic slave-plantations will be recognized as places of horrible human rights abuses.

When racism’s gone, skin-color-based profiling will seem like nonsense.

When racism’s gone, no one will be criticized based on their skin color.

When racism’s gone, people will feel no need to proclaim that they have friends of a different color than they are.

When racism is gone, it will all be gone — overt, covert, subtle, unconscious, institutional, retaliatory — and every other form.

“When racism is gone” isn’t just an idealistic idea. You and I can get all forms of racism out of our own heart, mind, and behaviors. I wrote a handbook to help do that: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind .

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3 prolife facts

If homicide and suicide are wrong, so is prenatalcide.

To be against the death penalty for the guilty, but for the abortion of the innocent, is inconsistent.

When prenatal kill replaces prenatal care, ALL human LIVES are devalued.

Enough with theories about Christ; it’s time to demonstrate His presence!

“May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love.” –Paul of Tarsus (The Lord, not a preacher.) Biblical Christianity is built on awareness of and obedience to the presence of the living Jesus.

When Christ is living and actively working in your life, theories of how He works aren’t necessary. Sermons should never substitute words about Jesus for His actual presence and power.

Church is too often like a fire plug (hydrant) — shutting down Christ’s living water and saving it for an emergency. A friend, Tim Spencer, puts it this way: “Emphasis should not be on the coaches but on the players. In the church the players never get in the game.”

Dare to be aware of the presence of the risen Jesus — everywhere! To be unaware of the risen Jesus in daily life is to miss out on what Christianity’s about. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

I think our contemporary culture has become sermon-proof. Nowadays, people need to see demonstrations of the risen Christ in action, not hear talks about Him.

Fight within to win without!

If you’re looking for a fight, fight to overcome your attitude of hostility toward people. Real victory doesn’t come from arguing with and trying to overcome people. It comes from overcoming your inner enemies. Fight within to win without!

When apathy tries to blind your sight, get fired up and fight to see the light. Ask God to give you fresh insight! As humans we can fight negative thoughts and feelings or surrender to them. I’ll fight!

The most difficult fight is often the battle between our ears, the struggle in our heart — the fight to think and do what’s right! The person who won’t fight to control his/her own thinking and emotions has surrendered to menacing whims and impulses.

People almost all agree that suicide prevention is a good thing because it saves a life. Abortion prevention also saves a life! Let’s fight to save lives.

Guilt is the normal result of your own wrongful actions or inactions. Fight to overcome your guilt. Stop what’s producing it.

Religious bubble wrap can shrink wrap your relationship with God.

Don’t let religion shrink wrap your relationship with God. Show people religion and they get bored (at least after an hour). Show people the risen Jesus and they are captivated and transformed. Religion likes to interpret life. The risen Jesus wants to transform it!

To meet with a group for religious formality isn’t the same as to gather to all experience Christ’s presence and reality. Sermon-hearing often stirs up good intentions, but unless those intentions are put into immediate action, they’re soon forgotten. One obedient response to the Holy Spirit will change your life more than all the words of a thousand sermons.

Don’t follow your heart. Make your heart follow Jesus! Going to church is comfortable and easy. Following Jesus isn’t. People are often hurt by church. Perhaps that’s because one man is given too much power.

Don’t let religion be a distraction from taking Christ-like action! Avoid the attraction of inaction. The Bible says, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” The way to grow is to flow with the Holy Spirit. The way to stagnate is to sit and be a spectator. Religion too often creates inactive sentiment — nice feelings that go nowhere.

Religion focuses on God as history or in Heaven, but God wants to write on your heart right now. When you read the New Testament you discover that Christianity was never intended to be religious bubble wrap.

It’s not how much you do for Christ. It’s how much you let Christ do in and through you.

Jesus isn’t an absentee landlord needing clergy to run His body as an institution. He’s alive, present, and capable of running things! Churches too often let an organizational flow chart stop the flowing of the Spirit of God and replace the Headship of Christ.