Steve Simms's Blog, page 34
December 17, 2024
The Man Who Told Me to Leap for Joy
View all responsesA man told me to jump for joy when I am persecuted. I’ve discovered that obeying His words by jumping for joy when I don’t feel like it causes joy to jump into my heart and puts a smile on my face. It overrides my unpleasant feelings with fun and silliness. Hop to it and see for yourself.
Joy is like a jump ball. Leap up and grab it. Then pass it around.
To more fully enjoy life be a joy-jumper and a faith-leaper. Joyous jumping doesn’t require lessons. Simply leap in faith. Before you jump to negative conclusions, jump awhile for joy.
Sometimes a smile is just a hop, skip, and joyful jump away. Get a jump on inner peace. Stay one joy-jump away from sadness. Leap for joy at least once a day.
Perhaps the biggest leap of faith is to do what Jesus said and jump for joy when you are persecuted. Jumping for joy is seldom seen in adults (except for at sporting events and on TV game shows) They are generally embarrassed to jump for joy because they don’t want to hear anyone say: “Jeepers creepers — look at those crazy leapers!”
Spirit-led jumps of joy and leaps of faith are powerful exercises. They can turn spiritual couch potatoes into mighty Christ-followers.
Little children love to jump for joy, especially on beds and couches. Once they get started it’s hard to stop them.
Once I jumped up and down for joy when I was rejected. Then someone called the police on me.
I was selling books door-to-door one summer while I was in college. My company instructed me to overcome rejection by rejoicing and jumping for joy the next time someone slammed the door on me. (That kinda sounds like what Jesus said: “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in Heaven.”)
It didn’t take long for an opportunity to arise. A man slammed the door when I told him what I was selling, so I jumped around and cheered on his porch like my team had just scored a touchdown. A few minutes a later police car pulled up beside me as I was walking through the neighborhood. Two policemen began to interrogate me about my criminal activities on that man’s porch.
I confessed that I jumped and cheered when he slammed the door and I told them that my sales company had told me to do it. One of them jumped all over me and then very seriously and police-like said, “We strongly suggest that you no longer do that.” What party poopers!
When you jump for joy your frown will turn upside down. One small step away from sadness can be a giant leap toward happiness. Jumping for joy can help your heart leap over sadness.
Jump at the opportunity to obey the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 8:14.) Wherever Christians gather is supposed to be a safe place to open your heart to God and to one another. It should be a safe place to leap for joy. Make it so!
A leap into the light will lighten your load. Jump out of your sin and into God mercy and forgiveness.
I love to spend time with people who like to pray aloud with me, who like to talk to and listen to Jesus together, who like to rejoice and celebrate His presence together, who like to pour out their heart in verbal expressions of adoration and praise to Him. I like to see people be so bold and moved by the Spirit that they even leap for joy in His presence.
If you want to grow
By leaps and bounds
Hang around
The risen Jesus
And jump
When He says jump.
To jump for joy
Let your heart
Always host
Father, Son,
And Holy Ghost.
December 16, 2024
Picture Perfect Peace
View all responsesThe Inner Light That Radiates from God’s Thoughts Will Guide You Home
Notice the thoughts within you that come from God. You don’t choose to think them (and you often may not even want them). They originate beyond your brain. They are wholesome and holy and call you to live a better life.
Many thoughts from God come to you every day but you mostly look away and let them pass by unnoticed. Those thoughts are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, full of virtue, and worthy to be praised. God-thoughts come to lead you to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Dare to daily listen to, be led by, and live by God’s thoughts that are always higher than your own thoughts–the gifts of hope and help that His Spirit speaks within your soul and your mind. Train your consciousness to hear Christ’s still small voice, to absorb and savor what He says within you, and to faithfully obey Him.
God’s thoughts enter you as words, promptings, sensations, images, insights, and more. You can also access them through the Bible. God-thoughts always align with the words that God spoke to and through the writers of the Scriptures. They come to exhort you, comfort you, and call you to open your heart to intimacy with and obedience to the risen Jesus Christ. Now be still and notice the thoughts of God . . .
I love to spend time with people who listen to and obey God-thoughts. They like to pray aloud with me, to talk to and listen to Jesus together, and to pour out their heart in verbal expressions of love, adoration, and praise to Him.
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Why We Celebrate December 25th
Why we celebrate December.
Jesus Christ is Lord!
If you're a member
Of His body,
Don't be a cold ember.
Let your heart be tender
So He can make you whole
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Fine-Tuned Listening
View all responsesI’ve been learning the skill of listening to the Holy Spirit. Here’s what I heard in my heart about the Bible as I laid in bed early this morning:
“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.” (Joshua 1:8)
Continually quote the Bible. (When I got online this morning the first thing that I saw was these words: “Quotes to inspire you to try something new.” That describes the Bible! Quote it throughout the day!)Constantly ponder the wonders in the Bible. Do what the Bible says to do.“You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.” (Mark 7:13.)
The routine of religious tradition distracts from the Bible. The lens of religious tradition distorts the Bible.“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16.)
Don’t just be taught the Bible trough sermons and classes, let the Bible directly teach you. Don’t rebuke the Bible, let the Bible rebuke you.Don’t correct the Bible, let the Bible correct you. Don’t ignore the Bible, let the Bible train you how to live in peace and harmony.“No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21)
Set aside your own interpretation of things and replace it with what the Bible says. Let the Holy Spirit, Himself, directly interpret the Bible for you within your heart. Don’t study the Bible to prove your point. Read it with an open heart so the Holy Spirit can make His point to you!
December 14, 2024
Is Bible Study Biblical?
The King James Bible says: “Study to show thyself approved,” (2 Timothy 2:15) but the word study isn’t in the Greek. Almost all the other translations stay faithful to the original Greek and avoid the word “study.” The Greek word used instead of “study” means “be diligent.”
Because the King James translators put a word in their translation that isn’t in the Greek, many people have been misled to think that Christians need to study and be taught the Bible in an academic, analytical way. They focus more on searching for, evaluating, and/or memorizing information from the Bible than on diligently absorbing and applying the Bible in their daily life.
The Bible should be read with an open heart instead of with mental analysis. It’s a living book anointed by the Holy Spirit who speaks to people who humbly read its pages and causes the words to burn in their heart. The Bible is a love letter from the living God to soak up and savor. It’s not a systematic theology textbook to study and scrutinize.
To analytically “unpack” a love letter is to entirely miss its point! Set aside study and be diligent about devouring, savoring, and absorbing the Bible with your whole heart.
Jesus said: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He didn’t say, “Study the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
With all his academic study, John Calvin said: “”Ambiguity is the fortress of heretics.” He even ordered a man to be executed in Geneva because he disagreed with the other man’s belief.
However, I believe that Calvin was wrong. Ambiguity is the voice of humility and wisdom. It’s freedom from religious arrogance. It’s openness to being led and changed by the Holy Spirit. Christ’s parables were ambiguous by design. Love isn’t legalistic like the Pharisees; it’s merciful and forgiving. It boldly speaks the truth while overflowing with compassion, the way Jesus did.
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View all responsesHere’s the city that I am eager to visit. The truth is, I try to spend all my time there every day. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” (See Revelation 22:23.)
God’s light has dawned in my heart, and I can’t not see it. I behold the invisible Lamb of God with the eyes of my heart as I look at the things that are unseen and stand in awe of His presence and power working within me day after day. “Christ in me, the hope of glory,” is the ever-expanding light that continues to find the darkness hidden deep inside of me and to drive it out.
Although at times I am tempted to quench (shut down) the light of the Holy Spirit, I do my best to continually surrender and submit my will to the great light of His inner shinning. Focusing on God’s inner light fills me with His hope thoughts and produces the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit within me. Always search for hopethoughts.
Biblical Christianity isn’t a pattern, a form, or a program. It’s “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” I believe that the three most important tools people need to use in order to mature and to grow strong in the light of Christ are:
1) Obey the Holy Spirit,
2) Devour, savor, and absorb the Bible, and
3) Open their heart up to one another.
The wind blows where it will. It doesn’t follow a human-led program. Neither does the Holy Spirit. Follow the light of Jesus, not a program. Christians can put on impressive religious programs, but we are called to put on Christ “and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (See Ephesians 4:24 and Romans 13:14.)
When you read the 50-something one another commands in the New Testament, it seems rather obvious that Christians need to meet more as a support group than as an audience. Corporate worship in the Bible is a simple gathering where Christians meet up with one another and with the Holy Spirit. It’s not an institution or a program. I meet weekly with some other Spanish learners that way. We gather without an organization in order to teach and encourage one another as we practice communicating with each other. I also meet regularly with various groups of Christ-followers to do the same.
Discipleship
This is the essence
And the evidence
Of discipleship.
Open up your heart
Until you can sense
Christ’ inner presence.
Then do what He says.
Let Jesus convince
You that He is real.
Christians are called to seek
The kingdom of God first,
Not religious programs
That happen every week.
The Holy Spirit
Doesn’t need to follow
A religious program.
He is the great I AM.
Let Him be your Leader,
The light of your life.
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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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.
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