Steve Simms's Blog, page 45
July 28, 2024
Christianity is More Than Sitting People in Rows
Faith is inspired
By God’s Spirit.
It’s not acquired
By studying.
An inner flash
Of sudden insight
Has more power
Than a mental stash
Of information.
Faith isn’t science.
It’s full reliance
On Christ in you.
The way faith grows
Isn’t by sitting
People in rows
To listen to
What one man knows.
It grows
When people expose
Their heart to Christ
And to one another.
I’m at the Mercy of the Court
View all responsesI can quickly fall into self-righteousness, pride, and a feeling of moral superiority. But then I realize that I am no better than anyone else. Though outwardly I can appear to be morally upstanding, inwardly all sorts of evil bounces around deep down in my heart. I agree with a man named Paul who wrote: “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out,” and “What a wretched man I am.” He also wrote: “There is none righteous, no not one.”
I am a man who has learned that I can’t rely on my merit but only on God’s mercy demonstrated through Christ’s death on the Cross. I’m at the mercy of His court, but that’s a wonderful place to be. The blood of Jesus has paid the penalty for the wretchedness in me, and I have invited Him to live in me, to take moment-by-moment control of my life, and to continually direct me by His Spirit. Now I enjoy the undeserved fruit of the Spirit that Christ releases from within me, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Continually embracing God’s mercy as a free gift sets me free from guilt and fills me with the desire to follow and obey Him forever. Every time I slip up and fall (in thought, word, or behavior), in brokenness I ask for His forgiveness. Then the risen Jesus picks me up, washes away my guilt and shame, and welcomes me back into the awareness of His presence and power.
I’m a beggar who has found the bread of life and now wants to tell everyone how wonderful it is! I’m a Jesus-lover, a sinner saved by grace!
What a crazy time we live in. We have election deniers on one side of the political spectrum and gender deniers on the other. “There is none righteous, no not one.” “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." data-large-file="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." tabindex="0" role="button" src="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." alt="" class="wp-image-40499" />Photo by Christian Wasserfallen on Pexels.comJuly 27, 2024
The Dinosaur of Moral Virtue
View all responsesAs a Boy Scout every week I recited and pledged myself to live out these moral virtues: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” The world has changed since then.
The Bible says: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Those types of character traits are being swept into extinction by our chaotic contemporary culture. The morality that they proclaim is now seen as a dinosaur from the ancient past. I long for that dinosaur to be returned to the hearts of the people in the various countries around the world.
If you will steer and maneuver your mind toward hope, you can avoid the mud that messes with and muddles your mental health and moral character and fills your heart with guilt. Jesus Christ offers so much more than church attendance: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
If you want hope to soar
Get your mind off the floor.
It’s time to restore
The dinosaur
Of moral virtue
And to close the door
On self-deception
And heart corruption.
After writing this blog post about moral virtue this morning, I saw something from the opening ceremony last night at the 2024 Paris Olympics where drag queens were gathered behind a long table in a scene that looked like a mockery of Leonardo DaVinci’s painting of Christ’s Last Supper. I don’t think my desire for a return to moral virtue is a very popular position. However, without it I believe Western culture is quickly headed toward chaos. (Please don’t post a picture of the scene. That only spreads the decadence.)
The way some Christians are abandoning biblical virtues and embracing the opposite makes me think that if they had been in Sodom and Gomora they would have said to God: “What do You mean that You can’t find ten righteous people. They’re all righteous! Ours is a good city.” What a crazy time we live in. We have election deniers on one side of the political spectrum and gender deniers on the other.
True Christ-followers are called to be “speaking the truth in love” — to talk about the danger of sin with humility, brokenness, and compassion. A person who resorts to belittling other people doesn’t have much confidence in his or her political or moral position.
July 26, 2024
I Don’t Know Where I’d Go
View all responsesIf suddenly won two free plane tickets to anywhere, I don’t know where I would go. I’d have to ask my guide who lives inside of me. Then I’d go to wherever He tells me to go (unless He tells me to give the tickets away). I’d just need to pray and listen to what Jesus has to say.
“This is how the Holy Spirit works, not by overcoming power with brute force, but by subverting power with gentle humility. It’s astonishing really.” —JD Walt
Jesus will supernaturally manifest His presence and His wisdom (which is far greater than the wisdom of Israel’s ancient King Solomon or any other person’s wisdom) through love, faith, and humility, as His peacemakers kindly speak the truth in love and refuse to fear persecution. When the right wing and the left wing humbly care about each other as fellow human beings a country can soar like a plane. When they angrily clash, they will eventually crash.
Jesus doesn’t give us
A to-do list
Or a test
To pass or fail.
He gives us His rest
So we can be still
And know He is God.
The awareness
Of Christ’s presence
Is the essence
Of Christianity.
It’s not just a story.
Christ living in you
Will transform you
From glory to glory
Into His image.
Step into His faith-rest
And daily behold
The Lamb of God.
July 25, 2024
Somebody Special Calls Me “Friend”
View all responsesI have a private nickname. Somebody very special calls me “Friend.” His texts comfort, inspire, and challenge me. His voice deeply touches me. His presence empowers me to be a better person.
Here’s how I got that nickname. “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus calls me Friend and from glory to glory transforms me from within. (And if you will read His texts in the Bible and listen to His still small voice in your heart, He will call you Friend too.)
We humans are surrounded by the inexplainable force beyond nature called life. Jesus, the living Word of God, is the source of that life. Christians need more than additional information about Jesus. They need to continually experience His presence.
Christians are supposed to influence the world for good. They shouldn’t swept along by the world’s anger and conspiracy theories.
Just because a group of people calls itself a church it doesn’t mean that group is functioning as the body of Christ. Jesus is the literal Head of His body. If He hasn’t been given actual and full supremacy over a group of people to personally direct and lead them by His Spirit, are they functioning as His body? (See Colossians 1:28 and Romans 8:14.)
Disciples (Friends of Christ) aren’t made by religious lectures. They are made by Spirit-led relationships.
The “disciples” of the street are certainly bolder in promoting their beliefs than the “disciples” of the church are. If church attendees would spread love the way street gangs spread anger and violence, the world would be a much better place!
Love your neighbor and humbly speak the truth in love, kindness, and compassion even if your neighbor finds the truth offensive. The one who calls me “Friend” is always kind to me, even when He corrects me.
People who accuse
And verbally abuse
The people who choose
To reject their views
Have never learned to use
The power of kindness
By speaking the truth in love.
Reproductive Rights?
Reproductive Rights?
There is nothing
“Reproductive”
About taking
Prenatal life.
It’s destructive.
July 24, 2024
My Body
My body has been marvelously and wonderfully assembled from more than 30 trillion living cells each one intricately designed and incredibly structured. My body is an astonishing gift that I have been given to live in, to take care of, and to use to do good and to serve others and to glorify God.
My body is my home away from my eternal home. It’s my earth suit that I wear during my time on this planet. “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
I don’t live in my body alone. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Jesus said: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” Many years ago, I opened the door. Now this Bible verse applies to me: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Jesus predicted that the ancient Jewish temple where the manifest presence of God stayed behind a veil in the Holy of Holies would be completely destroyed. When Jesus died that veil was torn from top to bottom. A few years later the Roman army leveled the temple to the ground in 70 AD. Now the manifest presence of God lives in the innermost being of His children who have opened the door and allowed Jesus in the person of the Holy Spirit to come and live their heart and to lead them from within. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”
Although Christ now lives in me, my body still has a rebellious nature and tries to get me to turn away from Jesus and do what I want to do. By regularly reading and daily applying the Bible in my life I’ve learned that I need to follow Paul’s example: “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” Therefore, I’m continually learning and constantly training to be led by the Spirit, not by my own desires.
The human body (which includes the astonishing human brain) is the most marvelous organism on earth. However, the invisible person who inhabits that body is infinitely more marvelous. That inner unseen person has a choice — to seek to draw near and surrender moment by moment to the living God, or to ignore Him.
Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament said: “I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” O that all people would begin to do that moment by moment.
July 23, 2024
I Attempt to Avoid Making and Hearing Accusations
View all responses“We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn the truth about all these charges we are bringing against him. The other Jews joined in the accusation, asserting that these things were true.” –Acts 24:5-9. (A very few years later in 70 AD the Jewish temple and all of Jerusalem were leveled to the ground by the Roman army.)
Last night it came to me that I was to write about accusations this morning. I wasn’t comfortable with that so throughout the night I tried to think about something else to write about, but nothing would come to me. Then this morning I came to a blog that I read regularly and saw the Scripture above with the word “accusation.” So I came back into alignment with what I felt prompted to write about last night — one thought at a time.
A society caught up in and swept along by the distractions of angry, unproven accusations cannot long endure.
When accusations are repeatedly made and boldly asserted without solid evidence people will believe and repeat them whether they are true or not.
Often it is the people whose arguments are the weakest who make the loudest accusations.
Accusations aren’t proof, no matter how confidently they’re stated.
The people who resort to unproven accusations are often the guilty ones.
It’s easier to discredit other people’s ideas with smear tactics than it is to promote your own case on its own merit.
If you don’t know the full story, there’s a strong possibility that your accusations are false.
Accusations made by people who refuse to humbly admit their own wrongdoing are usually false.
When a person verbally abuses people until they get mad and return his insults, he usually acts like a victim and says that he’s the one who is being mistreated.
Unproven accusations are often an attempt to divert people’s attention from your own guilt.
Accusations don’t prove anything. Without strong evidence they are only drama that distracts from the truth.
Be slow to believe accusations. There’s a good chance that they aren’t true.
People often use unsubstantiated accusations to try to hide their own insecurity from other people.
The spirit of accusation is the devil, and the Bible specifically calls him the accuser.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t accuse. He knows the full story about each one of us humans. He calls us to His presence and compassionately woos us to turn away from our darkness and deception and toward the honesty and humility of God’s Light.
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." data-large-file="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." tabindex="0" role="button" src="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." alt="" class="wp-image-40444" />Photo by Rodolpho Zanardo on Pexels.comJuly 22, 2024
I’m Going to See the King (Here’s How I Received My Free Ticket)
View all responsesSomeday I’m going to go see the King of Kings face to face. Here’s how I got my free ticket (and had my guilt and shame removed so I can be at peace in His presence).
Ending guilt requires something much more powerful than forgiving ourselves. It requires God’s forgiveness. God’s forgiveness can’t be earned. It’s a free gift that God offers to whoever will receive it. How is it received?
1) Humbly and sincerely acknowledge that you desperately need God’s forgiveness and directly ask Him to forgive you. A Pharisee bragged to God about his self-righteousness, but a tax collector prayed, “God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Jesus said about the tax collector: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
2) Renounce, resist, and reject your sinful thoughts, behaviors, and temptations and rely on God’s forgiveness instead of on your own efforts to forgive yourself. Jesus calls that repentance. He says, “Repent and believe (rely on) the Gospel.” (See Mark 1:15.)
3) Let the awareness of the cosmic, colossal price that God paid for your forgiveness by giving His only Son as the sacrifice for your sins and the for the sins of the world, sink deeply into your heart. (See John 3:16.) Fully trust in and rely on the blood of Jesus, the power of His resurrection, and the reality of “Christ in you” to be sufficient to wash away your sins and to set you free from them.
4) Surrender the rest of your life to the resurrected Jesus. Open your heart and mind to a beautiful relationship with Him. Let Him continually woo you and lead you by His glorious daily presence and amazing eternal love.
5) Forgive everyone who has ever done you wrong. Jesus put it this way: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Why trust in the weak human concept self-forgiveness? Instead prepare the way of the Lord in your heart and your life so that you can freely receive Christ’s powerful, everlasting forgiveness. That’s the only way to truly and totally be free from guilt.
[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." data-large-file="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." tabindex="0" role="button" src="https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/u..." alt="" class="wp-image-40438" />Photo by Gu Bra on Pexels.comJuly 21, 2024
Changing Christianity from a Sunday Lecture Series into Live Daily Demonstrations of the Presence of the Risen Jesus
View all responsesIf I could change one thing about modern society, I would change Christianity from a tradition-bound Sunday morning lecture series into live daily demonstrations of the presence of the resurrected Jesus Christ. I would change it from a religion into a lifestyle. That would change everything for the better!
Jesus wasn’t born to give the world another religion. He was born to continually live and work in in human hearts and through His inner presence empower people to live a Spirit-led lifestyle.
I’ve always grown a lot closer to the Lord by listening to the Holy Spirit speak in my heart than I have by listening to sermons. Try it for yourself. Be quite and listen to His still small voice.
There is so much more to Christianity than going to church! There’s so much more that we can do to grow as Christians.
We can listen to the risen Jesus speak in our heart and do what He tells us. We can read the Scriptures and let them burn in our heart like a love letter from God. We can meet together and spontaneously pour out our heart in adoration to Jesus. We can pray over each other. We can gather to obey the 50+ New Testament “one another” commandments. We can rejoice in the Lord together and we can weep with those who weep. We can tell each what God is saying to us and what He is doing in our life. We can look for hurting people, listen to them, and compassionately serve them. We daily can demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit with everyone we meet. We can love our enemies, pray for those who despitefully use us, and bless those who curse us.
Christians like to organize independent religious denominations, churches, and “ministries” that have no outside accountability (even though Jesus prayed that His entire body be united as one). Then they proclaim that those independent organizations and their leaders are the official religious authorities. That causes people to believe that they have to belong to one of the worldwide tens of thousands of them in order to have a relationship with Jesus. The Bible says that Christians need to meet together, but it doesn’t tell us to organize ourselves into an ever-increasing number of self-governing tribes, clans, and establishments.
“The Resurrected Christ”
When Christ in you
Is your hope of glory
Christianity is
More than a nice story
Or a moral allegory.
It is auditory.
You hear Jesus speaking
In your innermost being.
He starts working inside you
As His laboratory.
Christianity’s not
Just informatory.
It’s reformatory!
Are you letting Christ change you
From glory to glory
And daily make you new?
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pexels-photo-2774556.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pexels-photo-14766052.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pexels-photo-1154619.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pexels-photo-4218856.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pexels-photo-1259327.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pexels-photo-7224522.jpeg){kind=link}
![[image error]Pexels.com](https://hopethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/woman-happiness-sunrise-silhouette-40192.jpeg){kind=link}