Steve Simms's Blog, page 32
January 1, 2025
Playfully Enjoying the Wonder of Being Alive
View all responsesLike a little child, I love to playfully enjoy and appreciate the gift and wonder of being alive. I didn’t ask to be on planet earth, but I’m so grateful that I get to spend some time here in this marvelous place in the middle of the void of space. There are so many good and amazing things about being alive on earth that I’ve yet to ponder and celebrate. My pain and struggles don’t negate the fact that I’m alive and free to partake of the joy of taking time to contemplate and treasure the intricate complexities of creation that continually amaze me. Since nature is so astonishing, how majestic must its maker be! I’ve trained myself to focus on His glory through each day, and one day I’ll see Him forever face to face.
As the years
Grow in number
Awake from
Your slumber.
Remember that
Time is winding down
And you won’t
Always be around.
Open your heart
To contemplation
That fills you up
With inspiration.
Throughout each day
Take time to ponder
And embrace the joy
Of life’s wonder.
Then you’ll see
Life’s full of meaning
And your face
Will be gleaming.
Even when
Conscious awareness
Of your Creator seems
Nowhere to be found
He is still around.
Say a simple prayer
That He will make
You aware
That He is right there
Where He’s always been,
Still calling
And searching
For you.
Read and absorb
God’s Light in the Bible
With a hungry heart.
The beginning of a new year is a great time “to be made new in the attitude of your mind and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:23-24.)
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December 31, 2024
Prophetic Skipping is a Beautiful Challenge
View all responsesProphetic Skipping
I love to skip and dance through time with the joy of the Lord as my strength. I savor and bask in the inner peace that comes from “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The Scriptures are full of prophetic words that skip through time to bless, empower, and guide me. The risen Jesus speaks directly to my heart, where He has made His home. Many Christ-followers speak prophetically to me (when we encounter each other as Christ’s Spirit-led ekklesia). I love and continually rejoice with Christ-in-you Christianity.
Christ-in-you Christianity is all the time and every place. You-in-church Christianity is confined to a certain time and a particular place.
Begin to see
Prophetically
A Christian who
Only sees
Religious rules
Will act like
The Pharisees
And be trapped
By the prideful seas
Of self-righteousness.
It’s time to be
Someone who sees
The risen Jesus
And lets Him seize
Control of your heart
And flood it with
The cleansing seas
Of His pure love.
December 30, 2024
A Book Makes Me Feel Nostalgic
View all responsesThe fact that a book written over a period of about 1,500 years by dozens of citizens of a small ancient country made up of the descendants of Egyptian slaves (that was conquered and destroyed several times) is the world’s bestselling and most read book of all time is truly amazing. Reading the Bible with an open humble heart makes me nostalgic about what I see in its pages. I long to experience more and more of God’s reality and presence in the present.
As human beings we can train ourselves to be always sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is saying and doing in our body, mind, soul, and spirit. Then we can move beyond nostalgia and be God’s wind chimes that announce His presence.
Don’t just go
With the times.
Be the wind chimes
Willing to move
With God’s Spirit
And to prove
And demonstrate
His presence.
Let go and
Let God’s Spirit
Freely flow
From within you.
Then you will know
The reality
Of “Christ in you,
the hope of glory.”
People who train themselves
To obey God’s Spirit
Spend their life flowing
The way the He’s going.
They let Christ be their guide.
Instead of rowing
Against His tide,
They’re always growing
Under His direction.
Romans 8:14.
Flow with Christ
Within you,
Not with the sin
You want to do.
Christ in you isn’t supposed to be an occasional drip or even a trickle. Let Jesus rise up within you (body, soul, and spirit) as rivers of living water. Let your heart perpetually overflow with the love of Jesus (no holding back) so you can unceasingly sense His presence and savor His peace. Train yourself to rely on the flow of the Holy Spirit throughout each day and to stir up and release His gifts from within you.
Keep your heart unblocked so Christ’s rivers can freely flow day and night. Make your life a river where the presence of Jesus is always flowing through you, not a dried-up gulley where Jesus rarely flows. Let Christ in you ceaselessly carry you along with His flow. “Quench not the Spirit.”
Christianity isn’t about human analysis. It’s about a supernatural spring of living water that never stops welling up from within.
If you won’t keep flowing with God’s Spirit your faith will stagnate. Nothing gets stale when the Holy Spirit is allowed to flow, however, if you ignore Christ’s inner flow, you’ll be swept along by your feelings and desires.
Get caught up in Christ’s current! Love Jesus, not money. Love Jesus, not your pride. Love Jesus, not stuff. Love Jesus, not your feelings and desires. Love Jesus, not entertainment. Love Jesus, not your opinions.
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Seeing More Clearly by Thinking Outside the Culture
View all responsesI love people who look beyond the natural, who think outside of their culture. They inspire me.
Lifestyle-Christianity requires ongoing Christ-focus–continually “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” It looks “not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen.” Christians don’t need more information about Jesus. We need to look up in order to behold and embrace a much greater level of awareness of and surrender to the presence and daily reality of the Lamb of God.
Lifestyle matters. Lifestyle-Christians live Spirit-led lives. They daily demonstrate the presence of the risen Jesus through what they say and do. Lifestyle-Christians always look to Jesus first!
Lifestyle-Christianity isn’t powered by human effort, but by “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It requires looking up with full surrender, not looking around with self-righteousness. Christ came to impact and to empower people so they can demonstrate His presence and reality. He didn’t come to make people religious. (The Pharisees were already doing a good job of that.)
Lifestyle-atheists say that they believe God exists but act like they don’t. They honor God with their lips but keep their heart far from Him. Many lifestyle-atheists regularly attend church. (Some lifestyle-Christans don’t.)
Intense Christ-focus produces a Christian lifestyle. Self-focus, even when coated with religious words, is an atheistic lifestyle. Refuse to let society’s pressure pry you away from persistently pursuing and nonstop gazing at the glorious presence of the risen Jesus.
Think about your daily lifestyle for a while. Does it say and demonstrate that Jesus is alive, or does it deny His reality? Your words may say that you are a Christian, but your lifestyle says what you really are. Your lifestyle speaks louder than a thousand words. If you love Jesus, incessantly act like you do. Lifestyle-Christians take on and daily demonstrate the presence, influence, character, and reality of Jesus Christ.
It’s easy to be a religious observer of religious observances yet neglect to daily listen to and obey the living Jesus. If you aren’t able to consistently maintain a Christian lifestyle you need a greater awareness of and deeper surrender to the presence and reality of the risen Jesus. Continually drinking Christ’s living water is essential to a Spirit-led lifestyle. Open up your heart and look up to taste and see that the Lord Jesus is real.
Leave behind the compromise of your comfort zone. Embrace the lifestyle and the courage of the Spirit-empowered commitment zone. Christ’s table-flips never flop! You can trust Him with your tables. Look up and let Him flip them.
A high percentage of church attendance and the Ten Commandments hanging in schools don’t make a nation Christian. An abundant harvest of the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit that organically permeates throughout the entire culture and produces multitudes of Spirit-led lifestyles, does.
Christianity is a lifestyle
That goes far beyond
Sitting in church for a while
With the passive rank and file.
December 28, 2024
Red for the Blood of Jesus and a Duvet for His Comfort
View all responsesGod’s a talker. He’s not silent. By speaking He created all that exists. From the beginning to the end, the Bible is about God communicating to people.
Hear now, this very moment. Listen to the Holy Spirit and be a Jesus sheep.
Jesus is the Word. He is the Creator who “became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus said: “My sheep hear My voice.” Be one of His sheep. Listen to, follow, and obey His voice throughout each day.
Always rely on the Good Shepherd. “Lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him,” and consistently depend on and obey His voice. Let Him “direct your path.” Keep your inner ears ever attentive to the risen Jesus so that you can “hear what the Spirit is saying.”
God is speaking to you. Put away your distractions. If you want to clearly hear His voice “prepare the way of the Lord” within your heart. Create inner space where you can continually focus on Him. Refuse to allow anything thing to distort or to turn you away from His voice.
Be like the young prophet, Samuel. Humbly say to God: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Then open wide your heart and mind and silently wait for His response–a picture, a thought, an impression, a prompting, a verse of Scripture, an awareness, or even a single word. Like the Bible says: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Always test what you hear with the Bible. God won’t contradict Himself. If what you hear is from God, it will align with the truth and moral principles that He has revealed in Scripture. If you don’t want to obey what you hear, then it isn’t from you. Thus, you can begin to discern God’s voice. Ponder what He says to you. Let it burn in your heart. Then step out in faith and obey Him.
If God created you, then He can speak to you. Hear now. Focus on Him and listen. God is talking to you, but if you don’t want to hear Him you won’t. (If you don’t believe that God is trying to speak directly to you, are you sure that you even believe that He exists?)
The most important thing a Christian can do is to listen to and obey God, yet it’s very rare to find a church that trains people to consistently do that. All church teachings are a mixture of Christianity and human opinion. That’s why they disagree with each other. For pure Christianity look beyond human opinion. Open your heart to taught by the Holy Spirit both through the Bible and directly in your heart. Let Jesus be your duvet.
Ruthie Osswald, a designer at Brooklinen said: “A duvet consists of two parts—a duvet cover, and a duvet insert. The insert is a comforter, and the cover is a removable, protective shell for your comforter.” Now is the time to remove the shell that you’ve put between you and Christ your Comforter. Let the Good Shepherd calm and console you, not in a physical duvet, but with His loving voice, 24/7/365.
The more you hear
And truly obey
What God has to say,
The more you’ll be
Able to hear Him
Throughout each day.
December 27, 2024
My Perspective is Always Changing
View all responsesWriting what Jesus shows me helps me see things from God’s perspective instead of from my own. It’s a great way to begin to experience the gifts of the Spirit, especially the gift of prophecy. Focus your attention intensely on the risen Jesus. Notice what He puts on your heart. Then check it out to make sure it aligns with the Bible, and if so, write it down. Persisting in this simple activity will set your heart alight with Spirit-given vision and insight.
Christ’s fire continually ignites me with love and adoration for Him. He gives me the intensity of boiling water. I eagerly desire to hear Him speak within me. I read the Bible every day because I long to hear Jesus talk to me through Scripture. I listen to His still small voice throughout each day because I treasure being led by His Spirit. I am thrilled to write what I sense Him saying to me because I want everybody to lift up their heart to the intimacy of Christ’s Presence. I’m a Jesus-writer.
Some people say my writing is repetitious. It is. No matter what I write about my focus is on Jesus. He has captured my heart, my soul, my all and turned me into a Jesus-writer.
I write about joy because Jesus is my joy. (Search for: The Joy of Early Christianity.) I write about hope because “Christ in you” is my hope of glory. (Search for: Elephants Inspiring the Room.) I write about race because Jesus loves everybody and wants me to love them too. (Google: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.)
I write about “ekklesia” because it is the original Christian assembly, and it allows Jesus to be the literal Head of His gathered body. (Search: Beyond Church Ekklesia.) Everything I write, I write because I feel prompted to do so by the risen Jesus, the Lord of All! (Google: Free Gas for Your Think Tank blog.)
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View all responsesWriting what Jesus shows me helps me see things from God’s perspective instead of from my own. It’s a great way to begin to experience the gifts of the Spirit, especially the gift of prophecy. Focus your attention intensely on the risen Jesus. Notice what He puts on your heart. Then check it out to make sure it aligns with the Bible, and if so, write it down. Persisting in this simple activity will set your heart alight with Spirit-given vision and insight.
Christ’s fire continually ignites me with love and adoration for Him. He gives me the intensity of boiling water. I eagerly desire to hear Him speak within me. I read the Bible every day because I long to hear Jesus talk to me through Scripture. I listen to His still small voice throughout each day because I treasure being led by His Spirit. I am thrilled to write what I sense Him saying to me because I want everybody to lift up their heart to the intimacy of Christ’s Presence. I’m a Jesus-writer.
Some people say my writing is repetitious. It is. No matter what I write about my focus is on Jesus. He has captured my heart, my soul, my all and turned me into a Jesus-writer.
I write about joy because Jesus is my joy. (Search for: The Joy of Early Christianity.) I write about hope because “Christ in you” is my hope of glory. (Search for: Elephants Inspiring the Room.) I write about race because Jesus loves everybody and wants me to love them too. (Google: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.)
I write about “ekklesia” because it is the original Christian assembly, and it allows Jesus to be the literal Head of His gathered body. (Search: Beyond Church Ekklesia.) Everything I write, I write because I feel prompted to do so by the risen Jesus, the Lord of All! (Google: Free Gas for Your Think Tank blog.)
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“Magi Moments” Create My Perfect Space For Reading and Writing
I just read this wonderful blog post written by someone I don’t know named Ivan. Reading it was a powerful “Magi Moment.”
“Ivan.” (What do I see?) I see the name of my next-door neighbor who arrived with his family (4 adults and 5 children) from southern Mexico a year and a half ago. Ivan pronounces his name differently–“E-von.” Ivan and his family didn’t speak English. (He has since learned some.) I had started seriously learning Spanish 9 months before their arrival.
At first my wife and I were not happy that so many people had crowed into the very small side of the duplex next door because we share a common driveway with them. Then God told her to bake muffins to take and welcome them. We knocked on their door and welcomed them to the neighborhood with muffins and Spanish words. Their faces lit up as they physically embraced us.
Their new house was empty except for a small table. So, we went home and began to bring chairs, food, sleeping foam, blankets, towels, and anything we could find to help them get settled. Then we told a prayer group and also a Spirit-led share group about them. People from those two groups began to spontaneously bring beds, mattresses, a couch, fresh produce, pots and pans, deer meat, and much more. Soon Ivan and his family had everything they needed.
It was amazing to see God work in and through strangers’ hearts to bring about such wonderful provision. My family has now been extended. Ivan calls me “hermano” and his children are like grandchildren to my wife and me. They love Jesus and that makes them literally our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Thank God that the leading of the Holy Spirit came clearly to my wife and empowered us to override the initial feelings of our flesh. As I think back, I see Romans 8:14 in action. God continually reminds me to follow the “perfect light” of the star of the His Spirit as I “traverse afar” “in spirit and in truth.”
I’ve been learning to live in magi moments. Throughout each day Jesus fills my heart with wonder, brightness, and joy. A commercial Christmas is about collecting new stuff. Christ is about creating a new you through magi moments. Don’t forget to unwrap the presence of Jesus today–to listen to His still small voice in your heart and do what He tells you to.
December 25, 2024
Driving to Celebrate Christ(mas)!
View all responsesAre You Ready?
I pray
That people
Will prepare the way
Of the Lord Jesus
(The Way,
The Truth, and the Life)
Day after day,
The way
They focus on
Preparing for
Christmas Day,
And humble themselves
To pray
Night and day,
To seek God’s face,
And to turn away
From their wicked ways.
So that Christ can heal
Their heart and reveal
His presence to them
Throughout each day.
May you and your family, friends, and neighbors with your whole heart, celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ this Christmas Day and rejoice in the reality of His resurrected Presence!
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Christians Need Training to be Spirit-Led Soldiers of Love
Armies don’t teach their soldiers to simply sit and listen. They give them hands-on training in giving their all (even their very lives) in battle. Churches could learn a lot from the world’s armies and begin using Sunday mornings to train their members in practical ways to manifest the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit.
To “make disciples” means to train people to continually listen to and obey the risen Jesus. That kind of training should be the norm for all Christians but is now rare and hard to find. All Christians are called to be disciples and to make disciples. I love to share with people the training that God has put me through. My disciple training blog is called: Free Gas for Your Think Tank. If you Google it and go to it, you will see a search bar on the right. Type in a subject and see what God has taught me about it.
Far too often church keeps people silent and passive and causes them to be isolated and closed off to their fellow church attendees. To grow deeper in God and experience Him more powerfully requires that believers humbly open their hearts to each other and obey the 50+ New Testament one another commandments–not just sit together each week to passively listen to a sermon together.
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