Steve Simms's Blog, page 265

Lay it on the line!

How can we let God change us if we won’t even let Him change the church program? Take a risk like the chicken who went halfway across the road to lay it on the line. Lay your all on the line for Jesus!

Christianity isn’t a supermarket where you shop for what you want from God; it’s an army where you lay it all on the line for Him. Church should be a place of surrender, where everybody (including the pastor), let’s go and lets God! Programs, time limits, routine, and a controlled schedule don’t convey the concept of surrender to Christ

Talks about fire can never replace the warmth of a real fire. Talks about God can never replace His flames blazing in your heart. Christians should be like fire hoses, gushing with living water, not like dried up sponges lined up in rows.

Church is too often evaluated by the number of people present, instead of by the degree of surrender to the presence of Christ. Church without God’s supernaturalism is just a religious meeting.

Humble hearts are more powerful than huffy heads. The deception of self-sovereignty keeps us from the kingdom of God. To reconnect with your conscience is to turn on the light of God in your life.

Hearing sermon is like trying to follow a man’s directions but forgetting them. Listening to God is like following a GPS. Perhaps “to gather in Jesus’ name” means “to set aside human programs & instead meet under His personal direction.” –See Mt 18:20

If you’re not happy about your life, change directions. Alter your behaviors; adjust your thoughts; reorient your heart.

Calling adolescent language “adult language” or “mature language” is one of the great deceptions of our culture. It’s easy to be caught in the current of contemporary culture but it’s much more liberating to be caught in the current of Christ.

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Temptations are life’s train wreckers

Temptations are life’s train wreckers. They attempt to steal your identity and to make you a prisoner of desires and feelings. People who always cooperate with temptation never realize what a strong force has control of their life.

If you don’t attempt to overcome temptation you won’t. Without self-control, temptation rules.

Every time you give in to a temptation you guarantee that it will be back again, even stronger. Instead learn to overcome it!

Before jumping into temptation, count the cost. Is the pleasure worth the pain?

Anybody can give in to temptation, but it takes a courageous hero to resist it and overcome it. Temptation is false advertising–lying desires that tell you a shady behavior will make you happy and get you what you want.

If you act interested in temptation, it will beat you every time. Don’t go there unless you’re sure you really want to go there.

When a temptation is brought into the light and shared with a trusted friend, it loses much of its power. Try it and see!

No more boring church misrepresenting Heaven!

If a church service is boring, it’s not like Heaven. Heaven is the most Spirit-led place in the universe, so why doesn’t church train us to follow the Spirit to get us ready? Be led by the Spirit: Deliberately delegate the daily direction of your life to the risen Jesus.

Listening to a man talk about God instead of listening to God talk for Himself is an example of misplaced priorities. Unfortunately, people can go to church for decades and never learn how to listen to and obey God’s voice. Church can easily be a check-off item on your to-do list (done that), but faith, hope, and love can never be checked off the list.

It’s one thing to give a talk about Jesus; it’s another to demonstrate His presence in your life and character. The calling for all Christians is to lay down our will and follow the risen Christ instead.

People don’t need to be lectured — they need to be listened to, loved, and led by godly example. Christians are called to be prophetic people in what they say and do, not passive people known for sitting through sermons.

Perhaps lining people up in rows to acquiescently listen to a one-man sermon is a self-fulfilling prophesy of Christian passivity. Instead, check sermons with the Bible! After Paul’s preaching, the Bereans “searched the Scriptures daily” to see if it was true. Listening to sermons more than you read the Bible is dangerous. Jesus warned of “false prophets” so check preachers by the Bible.

Has churchianity become emptianity?

Has church become “emptianity,” a passive version of Christianity unable to produce inner peace and lasting transformation? Perhaps church should be like a theme park where people take action and actually do things, not a like a parking lot where nothing happens!

Fact is, Jesus never told people to go to church or synagogue. He told them to seek the kingdom (rule) of God.

When Jesus said “Watch and pray,” He didn’t mean sit through a church service. He meant, “Stay alert and connected to God.”

Being a spectator in a church service has never much appealed to me. I want to do Christianity, not just hear talks about it! Church has made the body of Christ all ears. But where are the mouths, eyes, noses, and the rest of His body?

For example, to rejoice is to express overflowing joy and heart-felt delight. Many Christians have never been taught how to rejoice in the Lord.

The Bible says faith is a “substance.” If you want to get high, forget about pills, drinks, shots, and smokes; follow Christ instead.

If we don’t have the power to live a godly life of integrity and character, people won’t believe that we follow Christ. “Faith without works is dead.” Maybe Christians could meet to interactively work on their faith, not to just hear a talk about it.

If your life is more than mere physiology and is intended for a higher purpose and meaning, will you hear, “Well done,”? Spiritual Christianity connects with Jesus. Theological Christianity tries to figure Him out. Casual Christianity passively sits.

Consuming wholesome words and images is much better for your mental health than consuming toxic words and images.

 

 

 

 

When life gives you lemons (16 alternatives to lemonade)

We’ve all heard the popular phrase about what to do when life gives you lemons.  But what if you don’t want (or like) lemonade? Perhaps we could learn from inventor, George Washington Carter, (who came up with hundreds of things to do with peanuts)  and discover some fresh, creative things to do with life’s lemons. Here are alternatives to lemonade . . .

Use them to add a little zest to your life.
Use the juice to disinfect your wounds.
Learn to juggle.
Put the squeeze on depression and force it out of your life.
Make some warm lemon water to soothe a sore throat.
Cut a lemon in half and set it in a room as an air freshener.
Remember that the juice makes an excellent stain remover.
Mix the juice with water and use it as a weed killer.
Make a lemon meringue pie.
Set up a stand and make a little extra money.
Freshen your fridge by putting a cotton ball damp with lemon juice inside it.
Deodorize your garbage disposal by grinding up some lemon peels.
Polish your brass and clean your chrome with the juice.
Plant some lemon trees.
Re-gift them to someone who likes lemons.
Make marmalade.

Make lemonade!!! Consuming wholesome words and images is much better for your mental health than consuming toxic words and images.

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If your life is more than mere physiology and is intended for a higher purpose and meaning, will you hear, “Well done,”?

The vibrance of spiritually spontaneous Christianity

When Spirit-filled Christianity stops allowing spontaneity and succumbs to structure and systemization it soon gets stale. When every faithful Christ-follower is recognized as a priest of the living God, Christianity will be revolutionized!

God’s voice, heard without ears, but with your spirit, is the key to vibrant Christianity that rises above religious routine. Too many Christians are focused on self and their personal prosperity rather than on holiness, obedience, and faithfulness to Jesus.

When preachers and priests know that those they call “my people” will passively overlook their behaviors, the risk of abuse goes up! It’s hard for people on the bottom of a hierarchy to hold the higher-ups accountable. We need equality in the body of Christ.

Too many people blindly believe that the ability to give a nice talk about God makes a preacher or priest godly. Let’s go beyond religious systems that often break hearts and allow abuse, to a direct relationship with the risen Jesus. People who follow Christ in the light are convicted by the Spirit and by their conscience and don’t live in sin and abuse.

Christians need to be encouraged and allowed to personally seek God, not to just sit through “services,” liturgy, or programs. If you keep bars on your heart to keep people out, the bars keep you in. Perhaps the best strategy for church is to let all the people of God listen to Jesus & then say or do what He tells them to.

A priesthood above accountability to the brotherhood and sisterhood of the body of Christ increases the likelihood of victimhood. In the institutional church system, one ungodly priest or preacher has more authority than a thousand godly church members. Ungodly priests and preachers are false prophets. They can’t teach what they won’t live. Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets.”

Your conscience isn’t an inner judge to condemn you; it’s an inner Light to guide you out of darkness. Follow it and see! Many people never get beyond outward distractions & inward torments to discover the quiet voice of peace and comfort in their soul.

Life goes awry when we base it on the internal perspective of how we feel rather than the eternal perspective of what is real! Don’t let life’s distractions, deceptions, and disturbances block your view of what really matters. When inner insights are ignored, nothing happens; when explored they lead to freedom. Revelation can lift you to higher elevation.

It’s time for church to go beyond being “seeker-sensitive” and instead give people hands on training in being Spirit-sensitive! If you don’t control your mind in the minefield of life, you’ll step on many landmines along the way.

Guilty pleasures release the g-word in your life

When you’re behaving badly, you’re buying tickets for lots of future guilt trips. Guilty pleasures release the g-word in your life Guilt is not the source of your moral pain. Your unethical thoughts and behaviors are.

Guilt is like speed bumps. It’s trying to jolt you into reality so that you change your unethical thoughts, words, and behaviors. Guilt means that there is something faulty in your thinking or behaving that you need to correct. It can’t change your past, but it can help you to redirect your life and avoid pain in your future (if you accept its warning).

When you feel guilt, plead guilty and change your behavior. Don’t keep doing the things that produce guilt and expect it to go away. Freedom from guilt isn’t a right. It’s a lifestyle of obeying your conscience and asking for forgiveness every time you violate it.

Guilt is the natural result of wrongful thoughts, words, and actions. It’s not the result of religion. Guilt can be ignored, denied, or drowned out, but it’s much more effective to heal it by repentance and God’s forgiveness. Guilt is like silt. The more you ignore it, the more it piles up in your heart, blocking peace and joy.

Passionized or pacified?

Christianity should activate people with fire in their soul. Instead it too often seems to pacify them rather than passionizing them.

If Christ is dead, a church meeting following Him leads to anarchy. If Christ is alive, following Him leads to supernatural glory!

Without the risen Jesus, church needs a CEO type authority. With Jesus leading us, we can all function equal sisters and brothers in Christ.

The early Christians met like a group counseling session facilitated by the risen Jesus. (See 1 Corinthians 14:26.) Christians originally met to make supernatural contact with God, but gradually replaced that idea with talk and tradition about God.

Religious tradition was built on other people’s experiences with God. True faith is built on your own experiences with God! Tradition represents faint memories of God’s fire in the past, but we desperately need Him to blaze in the present!

For many people, church tradition is their sense of security, and their security keeps them from the living God. When tradition is the bedrock of religion it can easily become a roadblock to the reality of Christ.

The Pharisees in the Bible replaced love with programs and rules. However, Christ-followers are called to always be saturated with, guided by, and passionized by God’s supernatural love.

To hear about God without experiencing His reality is like listening to a talk about water when your mouth is dry. Substituting programs for direct contact with God leaves Christians dry and lethargic and living from religious program to religious program.

The 12 steps encourage “conscious contact with God,” but church seems to prefer information about God more than contact with Him. (Conscious contact with the living God is infinitely more powerful than a talk about God can ever be.)

Spiritualists meet in a séance to contact spirits. However, Christians seem content for church to be a mere talk about God. Seances try to connect living people with the dead, but true Christianity connects spiritually dead people with the living Jesus.

Christianity in the Bible is full of ongoing manifestations of God’s presence and supernatural works. Let’s get back to the Bible.

Although a church service seldom offers opportunities for ordinary people to do ministry, real life is full of those opportunities. Perhaps Christians could meet, not to just hear a talk about living water and it’s benefits, but to excitedly jump in and enjoy it together!

Taverns, and honky-tonks let people experience interactive community, not just sit and listen to the bartender. (Is that a good idea for church?)

 

Spiritual authority & the kingdom of God

Christ wants to exercise His authority and build God’s kingdom, but, too often, church gives men the authority to override Him. However, the kingdom of God begins to manifest when people faithfully make the risen Jesus their supreme authority. Any authority that tells people to violate God’s authority is making people choose between God or man. (See Acts 5:29.)

Spiritual authority comes from humility and faithfulness to the risen Jesus, not from an official church office. The living Jesus Christ is the Bridge to God! Don’t follow religious authorities off the Bridge! Follow Jesus and His Word! Pastors and priests have been trained to administer with institutional authority, rather than to serve with supernatural authority.

People who reject God’s authority in their life, don’t want God’s love. They want Him to leave them alone. Every Christ-follower is a priest and is called to be a loving light to the people around them.

Many people think that God’s love makes Him passive and wimpy, approving of things that are wrong. That’s apathy; not love!

Closed, hard hearts can’t be led by the Spirit. Surrendered, tender hearts can be. The use of profanity is a sign of a hard heart and of insecurity, not of confidence. Confident, open-hearted people feel no need to use it.

The Bible calls Christ-followers “the body of Christ,” not a religious body. They should be led by the living Christ, not by men.

Church focuses on informing people who are already filled with information but are famished for love. Meet to love!

Getting drunk with living water on your tongue

It’s easy to drink your way to inebriation but it’s more powerful to think your way to inspiration! God wants to renew your mind, not just inform you. You may firmly think you’ll not change but God want’s to change your thinking. God wants you to live a supernatural saga, not just to stick with a systematized, religious script.

At the first view of Christianity in Acts chapter 2, people in Jerusalem thought the Christ-followers were drunk. I wonder why that doesn’t happen today. Perhaps that’s because, it’s easier to be ego-driven, fear-driven, anger-driven, or tradition-bound, than Spirit-led.

What you allow to continually influence your life will determine your feelings, your behaviors and your destiny. Let the Holy Spirit be your main influence.

Tradition repeats the same path over and over, but the Holy Spirit is continually trying to lead us beyond where we have been. Mindless routine continually repeats the ordinary, but the Holy Spirit leads to the extraordinary! Follow the Spirit! When hearing a weekly sermon is a substitute for reading the Bible with your heart open to the Spirit, Christianity is in trouble.

When Spirit-led people meet to allow the Spirit to lead them as a group, miracles happen! The Bible says that the children of God are “led by the Spirit.” How is the Spirit leading you today? If the Holy Spirit isn’t actively leading you, then someone (or something) else is.

To be led by the Spirit, don’t act on impulse, habit, or tradition. Instead, search the Bible and your conscience for the will of God.

The Christian’s calling and fulfillment is to faithfully follow the Spirit, not to blindly swallow religious ideas. We can’t be led by the Spirit if we insist on doing things our way. We must lay down our will for God’s will. Christianity’s not about self-fulfillment or self-forgiveness. It’s about being empty of self and filled with the risen Jesus.

Christianity is about a shared life. Christ wants to fill you His presence (as the Holy Spirit) and daily live His supernatural life in and through you.

Don’t wait until you die to meet your maker. Take time to listen to God today. A bucket list that doesn’t include, “get to know Jesus in an intimate, personal way,” is too short!

Speaking in tongues is an inside joyride with the Holy Spirit that will lift you out of your self-focus. While praying in tongues I said the word “Misha” several times and asked God what it meant. It flashed in my mind that it referred to Jesus. I searched it and found out that it is of Hebrew origin and means “who is like God.”

Don’t get so focused on disagreeing with people that you miss the blessing of connecting with them heart-to-heart. Let’s meet in Jesus’ name, not to sit and be entertained, but to be trained in hands-on ministry to one another.