Steve Simms's Blog, page 42

Hope Awareness Time

My favorite time of day is transcendent awareness time. I love it when I’m aware of hope in the midst of seeming hopelessness. I love the time when I am aware of an inner encouragement regardless of my outward circumstances. For me that time isn’t just a few moments here or there. It’s ongoing. Even in the midst of problems, difficulties, and trials, I work to focus my attention on hope that transcends my physical, mental, and emotional environment.

God’s Spirit testifies to my spirit (my innermost being, my heart) that I am a child of God. It’s not so much in words. It’s more of an ongoing awareness of His presence, His power, and His love that abides deep within me. The Scripture “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” isn’t just something I think about with my mind. It actually describes how the risen Jesus continually works in me to communicate with me and to keep me filled with hope and with bright glimpses of His glory. I am ever comforted in the arms of my Father. (See Romans 8:14-16.)

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A Recipe That’s Outta This World

Here is a recipe that’s out of this world! It’s from the world’s bestselling recipe book (and bestselling book overall) of all time. It’s full of recipes for victorious living.

The kingdom of God requires that you live by God’s desires for you, not by your desires for yourself. It means that Jesus is your Lord — that you have surrendered to being led moment-by-moment by Christ’s Spirit living inside of you (not by your thoughts, feelings, opinions, choices, or desires). What good does it do for you to go to church and hear a religious talk if your heart is callused and you don’t hear with your inner ears, understand with your heart, and then turn to the risen Jesus to let Him heal you and continually rule you from within as your living Master, Savior, and King? (See Acts 28:26-27.)

“For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” Those are the last two sentences of the Book of Acts in the Bible.

Paul was allowed to have visitors even though he was in house arrest waiting for a trial in Rome, under one of the most oppressive governments in history. Yet he didn’t complain about the government or verbally attack the Emperor. Instead, he looked beyond human government and kept his inner eyes on the kingdom of God. For the last two years of his life, Paul shined as a bright light pointing people to the presence and reality of the living Jesus. He is still doing that today. Read Paul’s letters in the Bible (with an open, uncalloused heart) and see for yourself!

Biblical Christianity is so much more that the words of a Sunday preacher. It’s the Living Word, the risen Jesus Christ, speaking in the hearts of everyday people. Hear Him! He speaks through the Bible, through your conscience, and through thoughts, images, and promptings that He puts in your mind and/or on your heart. He never contradicts Himself, so test what you sense inside you with what you read in the Bible to make sure it is God speaking to you and not your own voice or the voice of evil masquerading as good.

I’ve read the world’s bestselling recipe book for decades and continually sought to live by what it says. It has taught me to think and act like this:

Do something kind.
Say something kind.
When you disagree
Use kindness.

I try to speak the truth that I feel deeply in my heart with kindness and compassion. Here are a few examples of how I try to do that.

To arrogantly deny that human behavior is damaging our planet is to commit the coming generations to disaster.

Fact check of the popular use of the word “reproductive.” The dictionary defines “reproductive” as “referring to the process of reproduction.” There’s nothing “reproductive” about ending a prenatal human life. If animal cruelty is morally wrong, surely prenatal cruelty is too.

To continually claim an election was stolen with no concrete evidence to back your claim, is to act like a disgruntled child who didn’t like the outcome of a playground game.

People have a right to define themselves by their sexual desires and behaviors, but I also have a right to kindly disapprove of their desires and behaviors.

It’s becoming popular for American politicians to talk about Hell and damnation. They throw the words right into the middle of their speeches. However, God doesn’t want anyone to go to Hell. He doesn’t damn anyone. The reason that Jesus came and died was so that no one would have to go to Hell. He’s the way to avoid Hell. Get to know the risen Jesus and let Him rescue you. Read His recipe book with an open heart and discover His present-day power and reality.

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The Excitement That Has Never Left Me

Humility, kindness, and honesty cause people to be curious about what you believe. After Paul, the sent one, was falsely accused by the religious people in the city of Jerusalem and imprisoned for two years, He was finally sent to the city of ancient Rome as a prisoner of the government. Through it all Paul sat in the back seat and trusted Jesus to lead his life.

One of the first things Paul did in his confinement in the city of Rome was to call together the leaders of the Jews who lived in Rome so that he could humbly, honestly, and kindly explain his situation to them. He didn’t accuse them or insult them. They responded to Paul’s warm approach by saying: “We want to hear what your views are, for we know that people everywhere are talking against this sect.”

Rather than feeling threatened by Paul and his “sect” (party), they set up a time to come back and bring more people with them so they could all hear what he had to say. Then Paul “witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus. Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.”

Instead of accusing and verbally attacking people who support a party you believe is hurting you, be like Paul. Reach out to them with honesty, kindness, and humility. Then they might even say to you: “We want to hear what your views are,” and listen to you “explaining about the kingdom of God,” “from morning till evening.” That’s what happened to Paul, the sent one (apostle).

If you are a Christ-follower, you have been sent to where you are so that you (as an ambassador of the kingdom of God) can be a first-hand witness to and a living demonstration of Jesus’ literal presence, sacrificial love, and grace-filled humility. The kingdom of God begins to manifest when a person learns to freely surrender to, rely on, and humbly flow with Spirit-produced inner rivers of childlike innocence, trust, creativity, openness, spontaneity, and playfulness that release the fruit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Refuse to let an obsession with your rights quench the light of Christ that wants to freely shine in and through your heart.

The energy, influence, and insight of God’s Spirit produces indescribable joy! “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” The Bible isn’t a textbook to be learned but a handbook to be experienced and lived. As I strive to LUIGS (Live Under the Influence of God’s Spirit) I’m amazed at how Jesus works in me to keep my heart and mind ever focused on Him, so that I don’t feel threatened by the confusion and hostility that surrounds me in this world.

The last thing that I’ve been excited about is sitting in the back seat and letting the living Jesus steer my life. That’s the excitement that has never leaves me. I’ve been constantly and currently excited about the risen Jesus all my adult life.

City Can Be a Family

One day city will be a family. Of course, I’m talking about the city of God that you can read about in a book called Revelation. (It’s the last book of the Bible.) I experienced some of that city yesterday during an encounter with two strangers in my city of Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

I’ve met so many strangers who were unknown brothers and sisters and have been eager to welcome me into their heart and even into their home. At the sight of those people my heart thanked God and was encouraged. That’s the unity of the body of Christ in action. Although strangers we (Spirit-led Christ-followers) are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. All we need to do is to be vulnerable and humbly open wide our heart to one another with kindness. Then a supernatural connection beyond human description is suddenly recognized. It is revealed to us by God’s Spirit.

Yesterday I had a long conversation with two strangers, a woman and a man. None of us knew each other. Even though the woman was making accusative and offensive statements about politics, I sensed Christ in her. So, I humbly and kindly questioned one of her statements. Instead of responding with hostility she looked long at me and kindness rose up in her eyes. Then a rare thing happened. We had a discussion where we expressed opposing views with warmth, peacefulness, and laughter.

The man was mostly quiet in the beginning. He looked shocked and curious about how we could disagree so agreeably. Soon our conversation turned to Jesus. Without my asking her the woman excitedly shared a short version of how Jesus became real in her life. Then I briefly shared my story of encountering the risen Jesus.

The man gradually began to join in the conversation and to enjoy the joy of the Lord with us. I don’t know if he is a Christian brother, but we could see his heart opening up in front of us. Before we parted I gave both of them a card with this link (hopethoughts.com) to my blog. They both said that they would go there and read it. I pray that they do, and that God uses my words to encourage them with Christ’s presence and light. When I woke up this morning these words were flowing through my heart:

I try to be
A life writer,
To let my words
Dance and sing
And ring out truth
With kindness.

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Motivated by discipleship!

For me, every day should be a day of discipleship! What does that mean?

The way Christians “make disciples” has changed drastically from the first century. Today Christians rarely even used the word disciple. Instead, they sit in rows, passively hear a weekly lecture, and then go home to the same ole lifestyle while believing that they’ve just experienced New Testament Christianity.

Discipleship is the ongoing activity of passionately pursuing, focusing on, interacting with, and obeying the risen Jesus. It’s an unearned privilege made available by the grace of God through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the Cross. True Christianity never fails, but it is often abandoned and replaced with routine religion.

Discipleship isn’t just hearing a message. It’s being a messenger who testifies to and personally demonstrates the new life in Christ throughout each day.

True discipleship is much more than routine religion. It’s rich revelation that ever burns in your heart and demonstrates itself through your attitude, words, and behavior.

Biblical discipleship freely flows with God’s supernatural inner flow of rivers of living water as Christ-followers gather to all be led by the Spirit. (See 1 Corinthians 14:26.) It doesn’t shut down the Spirit’s inner flow with a programmed religious show. It trains people to continually listen to and obey the Spirit, not just to sit for a religious talk. (Search for: The Joy of Early Christianity book.)

Real discipleship
Isn’t being spoon fed
By a weekly message.
It’s being Spirit-led
By Christ alive in you.

Shake Off Mental Snakes and Live Miraculously

In the Old Testament, Eve listened to the snake in the Garden. When she obeyed it and she and Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their lives were separated from God. They died spiritually and were separated from the Tree of Life.

In the New Testament, Paul shook the poisonous snake that bit him and hung from his hand into the fire. The strangers who saw it immediately partook of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They took the bad man/good man approach. They said: “This man must be a murderer,” and they expected Paul to drop dead. Then after waiting for his sudden death, but seeing nothing happen, they finally switched their opinion and said that Paul was a god.

Paul shook off the snake and miraculously lived. He experienced and demonstrated the Tree of Life — a life-saving miracle from the living God. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. It’s time for Christians to shake off the snake of evaluating people as good or bad, right or wrong, left or right, and instead begin to demonstrate the miraculous life of “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and His love and grace for all human beings.

People want Christianity to be about a thing — church attendance, a sermon, a ministry, a preacher, tithing, a religious routine, a doctrine, a conference — but it’s not. It’s about a relationship of ongoing surrender and obedience to the risen Jesus. Biblical Christianity is about continually demonstrating Christ’s presence, power, and love to all the people you encounter. Shake off the snakes that want you to evaluate people by good or bad and instead love them with the life and presence of Christ living and reigning in and through your heart.

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Hear the Here God

Now hear the here God. Let His inner voice motivate you. He’s always here. God’s the ultimate Speaker! He spoke everything into existence.

Hear the near God say: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” Hear Jesus the God-Man.

Jesus uses words because He is the Word. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Hear the living Word say: “My sheep hear My voice,” and “I am with you always.”

The risen Jesus is talking to you. Notice the sound of His still small voice. Wake up from your daze. Tune into Jesus — the living, eternal Waze.

Let your heart be Christ’s moment by moment sanctuary. Listen to what God’s Spirit is saying in your inner ear. Hear Him call you by name over and over again. Let the awe-filled hush of His pure and holy voice reveal His way and ever lead and direct you from within — wherever you are and wherever He tells you to go.

Hear the word of the Lord in what God told the prophets and the other writers of the Bible. Continually ponder Scriptures. Write them on your heart. Savor them like a love letter to you from God, until they burn as an inner fire and flood you with His presence. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

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Trying to Find “the Honest Truth”

I like writing to try to encourage people to search for and find “the honest truth.” I’ve always believed in fairness (even when it goes against my own opinions, feelings, and desires). Fairness seems in short supply today, replaced by unsubstantiated accusations and propaganda. I like trying to cut through (and encouraging other people to cut through) deception and denial.

It’s important to be honest and fair. Being one-sided in what you say is to abandon fairness.

The nature of “propaganda” is one-sidedness. That’s all I see in most political posts — blind praise of one candidate and blind accusations of the other. All humans have liabilities and faults. It’s not fair to point out those of one candidate and to ignore those of the other. It’s even worse when candidates and their followers distort the truth and/or falsely accuse each other.

If you want
To be correct
You can’t neglect
To fact check.
False words will wreck
People’s respect
For your integrity.
Choose to collect
Truth instead of
Blind accusations.
If you overlook
Or distort the truth
You will infect
Other people
And your own heart
With deception.

Blind speculations
Lead to miscalculations,
False accusations,
And cruel allegations.

It’s hard to admit truth that you don’t want to hear. Lord, help me to live by truth, not by my unproven opinions, feelings, and desires. We live in the age of deniers:
* Global warming deniers.
* Prenatal-life deniers.
* Election deniers.
* Gender deniers.
* Guilt deniers.
* Insecurity deniers.
* History deniers.
* Moral accountability deniers.
* Love deniers.
* Pandemic deniers.
* Civility deniers.

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I Love to Transcend Where I Live

Geography
Can’t set you free.
Where you live
Cannot give
Your heart the peace
That you long for.
No geographical cure
Can make you pure.
Only Christ in you
Can do that.

Christianity isn’t something that a pastor, priest, or preacher does for you. It’s what you let God’s Spirit do in and thru you.

Counterfeit Christianity is confusing. It substitutes routine religion for the rigorous reality of “Christ in you.” That inner reality of the living Jesus was so strong in the earliest believers that the pagans in Antioch began to call them Christians (Christ-followers/demonstrations of Christ). See 1 Corinthians 2:3.

Today’s Christ-followers don’t need to abandon the biblical term, Christian. We need to demonstrate the reality of that term by letting the risen Jesus literally transform us into His glorious image so that all the world can clearly see Christ living in us and demonstrating His presence and reality through our attitude, behavior, and words!

Testimonies about how people met and were transformed by the risen Jesus are powerful! They clearly demonstrate Christ’s presence and reality in today’s world. It’s sad that churches today neglect to train, empower, and encourage people to testify on Sunday mornings and throughout the week.

O Taste & Savor the Flavor of God’s Favor

Seek God’s government first!
Let Him replace
Everything in your heart
That wants to take His place.
Keep your think tank
Filled with His righteousness.
Transcend your loneliness
Through His inner presence.
Savor the flavor of Christ’s favor.
Let your heart soar
On the wind of His Spirit.

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Gratitude (Without Table Blessings)

I don’t like religious table blessings, but I love the positive emotion of gratitude! Here’s why.

I seldom pray out loud before I eat. Why? When I pray, I want to pray with all my heart. When I am praying while food is waiting to be eaten, people don’t want me to pray passionately. I feel great pressure to disobey Scripture and quench the Spirit (who I feel stirring up my heart) so that the food doesn’t cool off and so that people don’t get irritated with me for a long, fired-up prayer.

Having been an ordained traditional (Presbyterian & non-denominational) pastor for several years, family members and friends would call on me to “say the blessing.” I’ve prayed a few long, heart-felt ones, but after a while I learned to cut it short (quench the Spirit) and make it simple and sweet. It’s easy for a table blessing to become a religious quicky. Maybe other people don’t feel stirred up to pray intensely before a meal, but I do, so rather than do a half-way prayer, I tend to pass. (By the way, I don’t know of a Bible verse that tells us to pray out loud before all our meals.)

Occasionally I feel prompted by the Spirit to say a blessing. When that happens, I am raring to go. (I’m speaking from my own experience, not intending to put this on others. Short prayers can be sincere; however, they usually stir me up to want to pray more and longer!)

Sometimes the Spirit leads us to pray short prayers and sometimes to pray long ones. Usually when I start talking to God from my heart, an inner flow rises up from deep within me. When I’m at the dinner table with other people I feel compelled to stop that flow so that I don’t get them irritated with me. In that case, I usually give in to the fear of man and follow religious tradition rather than what God’s Spirit is releasing in and through my heart.

Casual Christianity is counterfeit Christianity. Christ-followers are called to so much more than comfortable religious routine. Eyesight without insight and foresight dims your inner light with oversights and blind spots that keep glorious, tangible hope out of sight.

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