Steve Simms's Blog, page 279

ONE talkin’ ’bout ONE . . .

The book, ONE, actually talks about itself. But what does it say? Here are some quotations:

“What is highlighted in this book is not just a vision. There are many practical actions that need to be taken in order to fulfill the heavenly vision of ONE.”

“It is our hope that the mater of ONEness among people and specifically among the followers of Jesus Christ becomes a major topic of conversation.”

“Let’s consider the Bible with fresh eyes without the distorted lens of historical Christianity. Let’s pray that the readers of this book will hit ‘reset’ and return to the beginning and become one.”

“The author is not advocating an ecumenical movement where all Christian churches work out their differences to come under one unbrella organization. Rather, the oneness among believers does not need to be organized. Loving one another in one body is innate in each believer, based on the life of Jesus Christ in each one.”

“The author hopes that through this book many more believers will be inspired and find real joy in the building up of the assembly from house to house; according to God’s eternal purpose. For those already practicing the assembly in a home, this book will serve as a way of trading notes so that believers can learn and network together in the one fellowship of Jesus Christ. Let’s pray and live expecting the next and last revival. Reset to ONE; revival next!”

“I have no doubt that after reading this book — if all the verses highlighted and the thoughts behind them are understood — you will be motivated to commit yourself to living and serving toward God’s purpose.”

“This book, ONE, is not intended to be a concluding word, nor a terminal definition of the practice of oneness among Christians. Rather, our hope is that it will be a catalyst for expanding fellowship that would allow the Spirit to move freely among God’s people for new and fresh discoveries, insights, and experiences.”

“Quote from this book and reference it through your social media postings. Use it to start and expand on the topics of ONE; life, truth, and glory.”

From the Foreword: “ONE! The simplicity of this title provides strategic insight into Henry Hon’s thinking and the contents of this book. It is a clear call for every believer, though God’s empowering grace and our inspired obedience, to become the answer to the prayer that Jesus prayed to our Father.  ‘. . . that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.’ –John 17:23” –Gaylord Enns, author of “Love Revolution: Rediscovering the Lost Command of Jesus”

Learn more about ONE @ http://amzn.to/2AEBYlX

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Feeling Christmas

Check out this most unusual 55 second, Christmas video:

How I feel about Jesus’ birth.

It’s good to understand Christmas — it’s even better to feel it!

Experience the body of Christ in supernatural action

Have you experienced the body of Christ in supernatural action? Watchman Nee wrote: “Only those who have received revelation from God will see the Body of Christ, and only they will enter the reality of the Body.” It’s sad that few Christians appear to believe that the living Jesus can lead a meeting all by Himself, without a human leader.

Jesus established His personal Ekklesia (the city council of ancient Greek city-states) so that people could experience His body, not as a theological idea, but as a present day reality. The reality of the body of Christ is Jesus, Himself, actually living in and personally directing a body (gathering) of His people — replacing human leadership with His own direct leadership.

When the body of Christ meets and lets the risen Jesus bring out His order of worship (instead of our own), the kingdom of God begins to manifest. Jesus wants to introduce us to the kingdom of God where God rules without a human hierarchy.

Jesus’ ekklesia goes beyond human leadership. Ekklesia makes way for the risen Lord to personally rule and direct His body. “And the government shall be upon His shoulder.”

Many leaders don’t know how to oversee a group without controlling it. There is a big difference between overseers and managers. Overseers are like officials in football. Managers govern. The body of Christ has overseers; but Jesus is the only manager!

Before Christ, humans needed hierarchies due to rebelling against God’s authority. But Christ wants to return us to God’s direct authority and rule — His kingdom.

Churches tend to act like Jesus is dead and gone. But He is indeed, alive alive present! Let’s lay down human authority and let Jesus lead us! After all, the risen Jesus is the most amazing leader in the world! He makes a fantastic Senior Pastor!

The best thing for an unstable life is to un-stable Jesus — let Him out of religious tradition and embrace Him as the risen King! Let’s be a strong and stable spiritual warfare team, personally led by the living Jesus!

The only expert on Christianity is the risen Jesus. All the rest of us still have a lot to learn and a lot to live out.

A one-man talk or dynamic interaction?

Billions of Christians advocate for sermons. So why shouldn’t a few of us advocate for open sharing instead?  What God is doing inside of you is important. You need to be allowed to share it!

If we don’t think the Holy Spirit is strong enough to keep open sharing from becoming chaos, we’re thinking too small. However, if we believe what the Bible teaches, then Christianity is the most exciting thing in the world! Let’s stop boring people with dull talks about Christianity and actually live out the excitement of early Christianity so that people can see what it is all about!

If pastors are uncomfortable allowing the Holy Spirit to lead a church service, they often take control of the meeting themselves. However, when the Holy Spirit is allowed to freely move in a group of people, you see various people manifesting spiritual gifts and fruit. Spirit-led, open sharing lets Christians walk in the light as one spiritual body. Spirit-led, open sharing greatly increases heart-felt caring. (See 1 Corinthians 14:26.)

Don’t resist the wind of the Spirit. Let it carry your heart into the glorious presence of the risen Jesus. When I’m passionately worshipping Jesus, time flies by, but if I’m passively sitting in a “service” it drags.

Only allowing God to speak through the preacher is like limiting an artist to one color of paint. To act like only one person in a church service is qualified to speak about God, denies the biblical idea of universal priesthood. So don’t be limited to a preacher to teach you about Christ. He’s alive and He can talk directly to you (yes, you).

The body of Christ works by “heart-archy,” not by hierarchy. Too many members of the body of Christ have atrophied from lack of use. (Are you one of them?)

Christianity isn’t about being an occasional observer or an idle onlooker. It’s about actively hearing and obeying Christ. Don’t just be a spectator; interact with and participate with the risen Jesus Christ! Miracles happen when Christian spectators are allowed to be active contributors and to openly use their spiritual gifts to glorify God.

Don’t just go to church. Be someone who goes to the risen Jesus, hears His voice, and says and/or does whatever He tells them to. A Sunday talk can never fully satisfy hungry hearts. Press in to the presence of the resurrected Jesus today!

When the living Jesus is flowing through ya, it’s hard not to say “Hallelujah!” Connecting with the risen Jesus living in other believers is life-changing.

Jesus produces an inner spring of peace and joy that sadly, many people never discover. That’s because, when we are full of our own desires and self-interest and concern about our comfort zone; the peace and presence of Jesus can’t freely flow in our heart.

One of the most important things a Christian can learn is how to listen to and obey the Holy Spirit daily. However, that is seldom taught in church. And if a pastor dares to teach it, he usually tries to teach it from a lecture, rather than by allowing people to have hands-on, interactive experience.  However, the reality is,: Hearing and obeying the Holy Spirit can’t be effectively  taught in a talk. It must be learned by doing it. Perhaps it is time to make church meetings like a school science lab where people learn by doing instead of by lecture.

-A friend who is a long-term pastor in a mainline denomination put it this way: “All pastors are control freaks, including me.”  Church trains people to shut their shut down their spiritual hearing; but God wants it to be an ever flowing spring of truth within them.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t flow through methods, programs, or curriculum. He flows though people who humbly open up and surrender to Him. There’s nothing like the living flow of the Holy Spirit surging through your heart

So who’s prophetic; who can teach or preach; who can evangelize? Whoever has the risen Jesus living on the inside! Just let Him flow!

Thoughts about talking in tongues

Speaking in tongues releases the living flow of the Holy Spirit surging through your heart and out of your lips There’s nothing like it!
The mind tends to limit God, but speaking in tongues lets Him freely flow from deep within you.
Speaking in tongues requires surrender and humility — two things that God is looking for most from people.
The primary purpose of tongues is to strengthen you in your faith and in your relationship with the risen Jesus.
Speaking in tongues is a form of prayer that is prompted, released, and directed by the Holy Spirit.
When you don’t know what and/or how to pray for people, speaking in tongues will let you pray a perfect prayer from God for them.
Talking in tongues enables you to temporarily surrender one area of your life completely to Christ — your mouth, tongue, and vocal cords.
Regularly speaking in tongues will make the risen Jesus more real to you than anything you can see with your physical eyes.
Speaking in tongues floods your consciousness with the presence of Christ and the fruit of the Spirit.
Talking in tongues lets you experience the supernatural reality of the risen Jesus flowing from deep inside you.
When tormenting thoughts attack you, talking in tongues will force them out of your mind.
What’s up with this? Nowadays churches tolerate, accept, and even approve of all sorts of sin. Yet, many churches still reject the biblical practice of speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues is the introductory gift of the Holy Spirit that helps you learn to freely flow in the other 8 gifts.
Talking in tongues is a solidly biblical experience–a gift of God that is offered to you!
Trying to understand speaking in tongues without experiencing it is like trying to understand ice cream without eating it.
All 120 of the first Christians who met in the Upper Room, spoke in tongues.
They spoke “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” They moved their lips, but the words supernaturally came from God. The same with us: we do the speaking but God gives the words.
The miracle of speaking in tongues is not in your speaking (almost everybody can speak); but in the powerful flow of supernatural words that your speaking in faith, releases.
In the Bible, Apostle Paul said that he spoke in tongues more than anybody and that he would like for everybody to speak in tongues.
The Bible says that tongues are not for public use, unless they are interpreted so that the people present can understand.
Okay, I admit it. I speak in tongues. Been doing it for decades. And it is absolutely awesome!
The two things that have kept me closest to God have been frequently praying in tongues and daily Bible reading with an open heart.
To receive the gift of speaking in tongues, first surrender your life to the risen Jesus. Then ask for the gift of tongues. Once you ask, speak in faith (but not in a language you understand). There may be an awkward moment or two, but soon supernatural words will begin to rise up from deep within you and flow through your vocal chords. There will also be an intense release of joy and peace.

Watch this video: Crazy Bible Stuff–What About Tongues? (And subscribe for free to our channel.) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8OC7VfuVs&t=124s

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5 ways to recover from hurt in church

Ouch! Even the title of this post is a bit painful. However, if you’ve ever been hurt by church (and/or by people in church) here are 5 things that can help you heal your hurting heart.

1) Forgive. It’s hard to heal when you’re focused on pain. Perhaps the best way to let pain go is to forgive. So what does that mean? Well, it’s not about forgetting. Forgiving is about intentionally giving up any right you feel that you may have to hold anger, bitterness, resentment, disappointment, frustration, or anything else, against any person or any institution. Forgiveness is not a feeling; it’s a decision to give up your perceived rights to judgment, bad feelings, and/or retaliation. Decide to lay those “rights” down, no matter how you feel.

2) Resist any and all the accusations that come to your mind or heart, against the person, persons, or institutions who hurt you. Refuse to let accusations have any place in your words, thoughts, or feelings. When they come to you, say something like: “I gave up my right to accuse anyone about that anymore; so now there’s no room in me for accusations.”  If you will continually resist accusations, they will back away.

3) Begin to pray God’s blessing on the institution, person, or persons who hurt you. Whether you feel like it or not, call their name and ask God to bless them, their health, their finances, their family, etc. Do this every time negative feelings about them come to your mind and gradually those negative feelings will shrink until they vanish.

4) Move on, but don’t just automatically assume that you have to (or need to) go back to another institutional church. Ask God what He wants you to do next and how He wants you to obey Hebrews 10:25 “. . . not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” God may tell you to go to a house church, or to start a worship gathering in your home, or to meet regularly and pray with one or two friends, or He might want you to start a regular Skype meeting with Christians who live away from you, or He might direct you to attend another church. If you pray and listen, God will speak to you and direct you. Then follow His instructions.

5) Learn about the Greek New Testament concept of “ekklesia.” That word was mistranslated into English as “church,” but “ekklesia” actually was the name for the city council in ancient, democratic, Greek city states. Ekklesia was a town meeting where everyone present was considered equal and anyone could speak up and share what was on their heart. I believe Paul was referring to the ekklesia style of meeting in 1 Corinthians 14:26 when he stats that everyone can have something to share in a Christian gathering.

The first few chapters in the book, ONE: Unfolding God’s Eternal Purpose From House To House by Henry Hon, are all about ekklesia. Instead of mistranslating it as “church” ONE uses the word “assembly.”

ONE states: “It is imperative that a distinction be made between the assembly as defined by the New Testament and churches as they are known today.” That distinction can help heal your church hurt by showing you that God has an alternative way of Christians meeting together than what we call church. Get or download a copy of ONE on Amazon and find out more for yourself.

Also, check out my book, Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible–Ekklesia.

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Letting church come home

For those who like the idea of house church, but can’t find one and/or don’t know how to start one, there is great news. ONE is really a house church handbook. It’s full of practical and theological ideas about meeting together with other believers in someone’s home.

A lot of people are looking for more than church as usual — and for various reasons. Many people have been hurt by church; some deeply hurt. Others just have an inner longing for deeper fellowship than hearing a sermon together.

But what can people who want something more than church do? After all, there really hasn’t been a good alternative to the traditional church model which is based on passive hearing a sermon.

Well, a great alternative is house church. It’s not just a small version of the traditional one-man-preaching model. House church is much more than that. It is based on a group of people coming together to love, encourage, and support one another in the safety of a home.

It’s like a Christian support group. People come together and share what God puts on their heart. They really get to know one another and learn to truly care about and appreciate one another.

The first Christians met in homes. Going back to worship God in homes can help reconnect us with the roots of our faith and with the risen Jesus who lives in our fellow believers.

So, to learn more get a copy of ONE in paperback or Kindle @ http://amzn.to/2zvVz6H

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Most Christians have been trained to listen to a preacher, but not trained to listen to the risen Jesus.

When I was growing up in church, I was trained to listen to a preacher, but not trained to listen to the risen Jesus. (If church doesn’t train Christians to listen to and obey the Jesus, who will?) The reality is that if only one person is expected to speak for God (week after week), everybody else learns to be quietly passive.

After years of hearing Sunday sermons, I went to a meeting where ordinary people spoke of their love for Christ. It was in that meeting that I met the risen Jesus! That’s when I discovered that going to church without going to the risen Jesus is just going through the motions.

I used to go with ordinary people on “Lay” Witness Missions in churches and we would all take turns telling how we met Jesus. I love to hear ordinary people speak when they are prompted by the Spirit and tell what God is showing them and saying to them.

Perhaps Christians need a place to go on Sunday mornings that welcomes them as an active participants and not just as passive spectators. A team that only lets one person use his talents limits its effectiveness. So too a church service.

Sermons come from outside yourself, through your ears, and into your brain. However,

Jesus wants to speak directly to your heart! A preacher can lecture you about the Bible, but you’d be better off to spend that time reading it for yourself and letting the living Jesus explain it to you. After all, the Bible does not say, “Let the redeemed of the Lord listen to sermons.” Also, there is no mention of pulpits (or lecterns) in the New Testament.

Church is often like a gym that lectures people on fitness and then sends them home without letting them workout. So, as you sit though church, don’t forget to go to and view the living Jesus and let Him renew you with a spiritual workout. If Jesus is the Head of the church, perhaps we should gather to let Him speak and then everyone say and do whatever He tells us to.

It’s okay to occasionally listen to a spokesman for Jesus, but Jesus also wants to talk to you Himself. Don’t miss out on that! When Christianity presents “Head Talks” it can be informative; but when we present the risen Jesus, He is transformative!

To listen to a talk about a beautiful fountain is okay, but I’d sure rather watch it freely flow. Same with Jesus! Fountains need to freely flow. So do churches. Cut off the flow of either one and it becomes pretty lifeless.

God is my search engine. When I ask Him questions He pops up answers in my heart or leads me to passages in the Bible.

To be a “a hospital for sinners,” church needs to go beyond a sermon and let its members minister to people individually. A church service without room for openness and brokenness is broken.

I believe God is calling church back to its roots — the Greek New Testament concept of ekklesia. Will churches respond? If we won’t make room for the Spirit to birth something new, we may be acting like the innkeeper who had no room for Jesus’ birth.

Is a preacher the only one who can hear God’s voice in a congregation of Christians? He who has ears let him hear. What would happen if we spent as much time in church listening directly to the Lord as we do listening to a sermon?

Since true worship is a heart matter, it can’t be done as a mere duty or obligation. It has to be more than that! To limit God to the limits of a Sunday morning program is to limit God. Dare to let God loose!

Here’s the bottom line:  Christian worship isn’t about watching a religious program. It’s about openly expressing adoration & obedience to the risen Jesus.

Jesus is speaking directly to you; not just to (or through) a pastor. Hear the risen One; not just the one on a platform. Jesus is Lord (Absolute Master). To tell Jesus, “No, Lord;” is to deny His Lordship.

 

If it’s harmful, don’t do it. If it’s unkind, don’t say it. If it’s tormenting, don’t think it.

The thoughts and images that you have allowed in your mind were the seeds that produced the way you feel today.

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Be a fruity Christian

There’s no better stuff than the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But you often need to go out on a limb to get it. After all, that’s where the fruit grows. Are you ready to be a fruity Christian?

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control . . .” –Galatians 5:22-23

“Most Christians, after accepting Jesus Christ, spend a lot of effort trying to behave according to what is portrayed in the Bible. They focus on overcoming their sins and failures, and they do their best to be holy in order to have a ‘good’ testimony. Though these efforts seem admirable, they can become a distraction from doing the things that will actually help them grow spiritually. And if they are not growing, then trying to live the Christian life becomes a very frustrating endeavor.”

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“Consider the fruit of the Spirit, that is what the Christian life should be. Fruit is just the product of life and growth, not self-effort and work. If believers will focus on the four essentials for life and growth then the outcome, fruit, includes all the things that make a believer become a duplicate of Jesus Christ. A believer with the fruit of the Spirit, as listed, is certainly one with all believers in the body, and a joy for all people to be around.”

The two quotes are from the book ONE: Unfolding God’s Eternal Purpose From House To House by Henry Hon. Get a copy in paperback or only 3.99 in Kindle @ http://amzn.to/2hHg1Kv