Steve Simms's Blog, page 29
December 13, 2024
I Want People to Be Able to Say They See Christ in Me
View all responsesChrist’s presence “extends from generation to generation.” “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” I hope people say that they can see Jesus living in and through me.
Christmas means that we can experience Christ’s mercy, power, and presence right now–this very moment–all the days of our life. Jesus isn’t just a memory blast from the past. His presence is the ultimate present for the present! It extends from generation to generation. Unwarp and carry His present-day reality with you everywhere you go.
The mercy and presence of Christ “extend to those who fear Him (are in awe of His holiness), from generation to generation.” Let’s ever humble ourselves before His presence and allow Him to daily save us from the worry and pride that plague us. Let the actual presence of the risen Jesus continually overshadow your problems and your ego with His mighty power, mercy, and holiness.
To talk about Christmas but ignore the literal everyday presence of the living Jesus is to miss the point of Advent. Jesus wasn’t born so we can celebrate His birthday with presents once a year. He was born so we can live in His presence all year long!
To put Christ in Christmas means more than merely talking about Him. It requires opening your heart to and experiencing His actual presence. Unwrap the never-ending Christmas presence (Emmanual–God with us) and enjoy Jesus throughout each year!
If you aren’t as excited about Jesus as you once were, you’ve lost your first love for Him and your awareness of His presence. Lukewarm Christianity has lost its thrill and become ceremonial, routine, and obligatory. Christmas is a wake-up call, not a snooze alarm! Hear and obey Him.
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December 12, 2024
Today is My First Day to Ever Write About Prosperity
View all responsesI wrote this today before I saw tomorrow’s writer’s prompt. For some reason, I am consistently a day ahead with them.
True prosperity is to have your heartbeat synchronized with God. It’s not rooted in status, position, or wealth. This is my prosperity! “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
Perhaps prosperity isn’t measured by money but by contentment. Maybe it’s not the accumulation of finances but the growth of heart-felt gladness and delight — the ability to go through each day sincerely rejoicing in simply being alive. Little children do that. They still have the innocence and the lack of pretense to recognize and enjoy the loveliness of life moment by moment. Prosperity is the ability to rejoice and be glad and be content and be at peace regardless of your circumstances.
Prosper in gladness. Prosper in contentment. Prosper in kindness. Prosper in compassion. Prosper in forgiveness. Prosper in humility. Those are the kind of accounts that really matter! Prosperity is to live and think with a wealth of hope and joy.
Wealth, without a heart that prospers with peace, joy, and love, is just outward decoration for inward pain. The sole (only) prosperity that you can take with you when you die is soul prosperity! How is it with your soul? Inner peace is great prosperity!
Vast amounts of money can’t make your heart prosper with consistent radiant happiness, but soul prosperity can! Truly prosperous people wear the garment of praise that does what no quantity of money can do; it drives out the spirit of heaviness, worry, and sadness.
To really prosper is to have so much gladness that you give everyone you see a heart-felt smile.
True prosperity isn’t
To die with the most toys.
It’s the ability to
Focus on life’s great joys!
“Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
December 11, 2024
The Stage of Life
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” Life’s most important question is: Do you write your own script, follow your own program, and do your own thing or do you surrender to and obey the Spirit of the living God?
Too many Christians ghost the Holy Spirit and act like He doesn’t exist. The Holy Spirit is God, not a force. He teaches. Let Him teach you. He reminds. Let Him remind you. He leads. Let Him lead you. The Holy Spirit reveals. Let Him reveal things to you. The Holy Spirit empowers. Let Him continually empower you. He comforts. Let Him comfort you.
The Holy Spirit flows through surrendered hearts like a river. He moves through humble hearts like the wind. But proud, hard hearts shut out His activity and live unaware of His presence and reality. The Holy Spirit can be quenched, ignored, and pushed away. It’s best not to do that.
The Holy Spirit speaks spontaneously through Christ-followers. Let Him spontaneously speak through you. The Holy Spirit produces fruit. Let Him bear His fruit in and through you. The Holy Spirit gives gifts. Let Him manifest His gifts through you.
The Holy Spirit gives the gift of faith. Let Him overcome your unbelief. The Holy Spirit gives words of knowledge and wisdom. Let Him speak them through you. The Holy Spirit prophesies. Let Him prophesy through you. The Holy Spirit heals, let Him heal through you. The Holy Spirit works miracles. Let Him work miracles in and through you.
The Holy Spirit gives people supernatural discernment so that they can recognize what is from God and what isn’t. Let Him release His discernment in you. The Holy Spirit empowers people to pray in languages they don’t know. Let Him give you supernatural utterance so you can pray in the Spirit and interpret what you say.
The Holy Spirit wants to demonstrate His power. Let Him demonstrate His power in you. Walk in the Spirit. Live in the Spirit. Let your mind be set on what the Spirit desires. The Holy Spirit gives life. Let Him be the never-ending source of life in you.
The Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit about Jesus. He glorifies Jesus. Let Him always testify and glorify Jesus in you so that you can continually experience the risen Jesus in greater and greater measure.
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The Exercise of Group Surrender to God
View all responsesMay God overshadow our plans and programs and take full control of His gathered people? Spiritual awakening occurs when the Spirit of God is allowed to overshadow our religious programs and to take direct control of an assembly of His people. When we rely on and lean on our own understanding, opinions, and plans the Spirit is quenched. Jesus told the Pharisees: “You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.”
We Christians can also lose our first love and become lukewarm. But when the God’s Spirit is surrendered to by a group of believers and those present begin to obey His inner promptings, the Son of God demonstrates His presence and reality in our midst! A sense of awe fills all present as individual people hear, obey, and speak a word from God that was spoken in their heart.
God’s overshadowing is marvelous! Jesus is knocking on the door and saying “Awake you sleeper” so that He can release more of His life in and through us. Awake to the awareness of “Christ in you.” Notice how He is nudging your heart. Surrender and obey! You’ll soon find yourself surrounded by marvels!
Then don’t just keep God’s inner marvels to yourself. Testify! Gather with other Christ-followers and let the risen Jesus overshadow you all, as you each one notice, obey, and share the Spirit’s inner nudgings. “For no word from God will ever fail.”
Biblical Christianity isn’t a Sunday spectator event. It isn’t a sport to watch in comfortable seats. It’s about full-contact, heart-to-heart interaction with the risen Jesus. Christianity is inherently interactive and participatory. “For those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God.” (See Romans 8:14.)
Fans aren’t team members. They watch and sometimes cheer but never get in the game. Be a spiritual athlete on Christ’s team. The body of Christ is called to be and to meet as a participatory culture.
If Christianity isn’t participatory with people being directly led by God’s Spirit, it has moved beyond the New Testament and become formalized. It’s not supposed to be about being a passive part of a religious audience. Christianity is the life-long participatory project of ceaselessly following and obeying the resurrected Jesus. If you aren’t daily following Jesus in a participatory way, you’re just being a religious audience member.
A Spirit-led participatory environment will shift church attendees from focusing on a pastor to community interaction that focuses on the risen Jesus. The more a church services allows and encourages spontaneous, Spirit-led participation the more Jesus is able to personally direct it.
It’s now time that
Christians gather
As Spirit-led
Participants
So Christ can be
The actual Head
Of His body.
December 9, 2024
I Admire Transcribers of Hope
This world is desperate for genuine, heart-felt hope. I admire people who keep their inner ear tuned to hope and transcribe what they hear so others can be comforted and inspired by it.
I love to hear and transcribe the words that I sense God putting in my heart so that I can share them with others. Words, spoken as prompted by God’s Spirit, speak louder than human actions.
Don’t ignore God’s greetings that spontaneously come to your heart and mind. Do not be afraid to observe and obey the Holy Spirit’s promptings within you! Instead of doubting, wonder with awe at what God is saying and doing inside of you. Let God’s life develop and flow from your innermost being like rivers of living water.
When God’s still small voice appears in your heart, He’s not giving you obstacles. He’s giving you miracles! Don’t demand the full picture from God. Simply follow Him in faith — being led by the Spirit one prompting at a time.
The Holy Spirit has come to comfort, teach, and lead the people of God from within them. Align your heart, obey, and be transformed! The priesthood of the believer means pastor or plumber, physician or painter, professor or puppeteer, paralegal or pharmacist, psychiatrist, or parking attendant can all hear from God, be directly led by His Spirit, and speak His very thoughts.
Biblical Christianity is about experiencing heart-to-heart intimacy and ongoing community with Christ and His followers. It’s not a religious organization!
Words, spoken or written (and obeyed) as prompted by God’s Spirit, speak louder than human actions or opinions. Continually ask yourself this question: WIJTMTSAD? What is Jesus telling me to say and do? Then obey.
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Joyous Light Jumps Within Me Without Cartoons!
View all responsesI smile and enjoy life without cartoons. What I watch, look at, think about, and behold lights up my heart and makes me joyously ponder and live in awe and wonder.
Passing by God’s presence,
Overlooking the bushes
Ablaze with testimony
About their Creator
And the glorious sky
That declares His greatness,
We humans tend to walk
Relying on our own shoes,
Trusting our own feelings,
Opinions, and desires
To lead and direct us,
Instead of the Spirit
Of our Emmanuel,
Jesus Christ, “God with us.”
It’s a wonderful life
To surrender to Christ
And let Him take control
So He can make you whole!
Being born again
Is to awaken to
The awareness of God
And become so conscious
Of the presence of Christ
That you let Him come
And live His life
In and through you
As your hope of glory.
Spiritual growth is
Little by little,
Moment by moment,
Step by step,
Becoming more and more
Like Jesus Christ
As you let Him
Work within you
To overflow your heart
With the fruit
Of His Spirit.
When Jesus is presented
As distant, dead, or in Heaven
It can be rather boring,
But when He is presented
And demonstrated to be
Active, living, and present
There’s life changing excitement!
It’s a wonderful life
To live for Christ.
December 7, 2024
MCPA! Make Church Participatory Again!
————-MCPA!————
Make Church Participatory Again!
(See 1 Corinthians 14:26.)
(Google: Beyond Church Ekklesia.)
Don’t just go to church. Head directly to the Head of the body of Christ and say and do what He tells you to! If you’ve got the notion and it aligns with the Bible, it’s most like from God.
A Spirit-prompted notion
Is more than an emotion.
If you’ll truly obey it,
It leads to pure devotion.
Less darkness, more light!
I want less darkness in my life and more light. I want less self-focus and more love for others. I want less ego and more humility. I want less defensiveness and more kindness. I want less sin and more purity.
There’s enmity between sin and sanctity. You can’t welcome both sin and the Holy Spirit in your heart at the same time. Focusing on one will distance you from the other.
Sin embraced is Christ denied. Christ embraced crushes the sin that’s in your heart and drives it out. The one you host the most will win the day. “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.” Spend your time and energy “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”
Sin brings shame and shame makes us lame. Instead of limping through life in the shadow of sin’s shame, Jesus invites people to soar in the strength of His Spirit.
Focus on, welcome, and embrace God’s inner voice, not sin’s temptations. Welcome and obey your conscience, not your cravings and compulsions. Fight the good fight of faith — so that you can truly rely on and totally depend on the presence and power of the risen Jesus throughout each day. Be persistently led by the Spirit, not by sin.
Nothing can compare to the wonder of keeping your heart and mind centered on the living Jesus. These words — happy, blessed, high, thrilled, delighted, jubilant, elated, and enraptured — can’t begin to describe how keeping my attention focused on Jesus makes me feel!
Staying focused on Jesus requires much more than passive church attendance. It requires ongoing concentration and yearning for His presence. (In fact, with so much attention in a church service focused on the person upfront, it makes it hard for me to zero in on the presence of the risen Jesus during the Sunday program.)
There’s enmity
Between sin
And sanctity.
Sin produces shame.
Shame makes us lame.
Learn to live and walk
Throughout each day
Led by God’s Spirit.
Walk a pure walk
Don’t just talk the talk.
December 6, 2024
My Heart-Song Has Grown Stronger!
View all responsesThere’s a song in my heart that grows stronger and more joyful every year. It overflows with hope and positive words. The beautiful melodies in my heart strengthen and empower me. I try to unceasingly listen to them and let them lift me up. My inner song comes from: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Christ came to “enable us to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness.” (Luke 1:74-75.) He came to “to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” (Luke 1:79.) Jesus came to give us light and to guide us from within by supernatural revelation!
Christianity is about the living Jesus Christ healing and revealing Himself to human hearts. It’s not about a religious institution.
“God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shinned in our heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6.) Are you continually receiving and living in Christ’s light of revelation?
The foundation rock of Christianity is neither a religious institution nor theological information. It’s the light of Christ’s supernatural revelation shining brightly in your heart. It’s so much more than human organization or doctrinal explanation. “You must be born again.”
Let the risen Jesus
Revelation-ize
And revive your heart
With attentive ears
That hear what the Spirit
Is saying within you
And supernatural eyes
That see the Lamb of God.
Jesus is the Light.
The closer we get
To the risen Jesus
The more the darkness
Is exposed in our heart.
Too many Christians
Use religion to avoid
Getting too close to Jesus.
December 5, 2024
The Beauty of Nature Amazes Me
View all responsesThe beauty of nature (both plants and animals) amazes me! However, there is another beauty that amazes me even more. That’s the beauty of seeing the reality of Jesus Christ living in and flowing through everyday people.
When people are filled with awe and wonder in the presence of the living Jesus Christ, they can’t stop exuberantly talking about Him and how He wows them. That is contagious Christianity and it’s a super-spreader!
I believe (and the book of Acts seems to indicate) that overwhelming awe that causes people to daily live undone and surrendered to the presence of the risen Jesus is the missing ingredient in contemporary Christianity. That lack of awe often keeps Christ-followers from openly and enthusiastically proclaiming and demonstrating the presence, power, and love of Jesus.
When the risen Jesus
Is the one true Header
Christianity is
A super-spreader
And a doubt shredder
That wakes people up
To the presence of Christ.
When Christianity
Shifted from mystical
(From being Spirit-led
With Jesus as the Head)
To analytical
And statistical,
It became logistical
And egotistical.
Set your pride
To the side
So that Christ
Can reside
Within you
And be your
Inner Guide.
For joy unspeakable:
Let God be your inner Guide.
Live in rhythm with Jesus.
Stay in step with the Spirit.
A dead God needs a religious organization to speak for him, but the risen Jesus can speak for Himself. “My sheep hear My voice.”
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