Steve Simms's Blog, page 46

Making Unproven, Prideful Accusations

A personality trait that always raises a red flag with me is peoples’ tendency to make unproven, prideful accusations. This is rampant nowadays, especially in politics.

Too many people who say they are Christians are stating their unproven opinions and accusations as if they are facts. That’s the way to deception. Jesus said that many false prophets are coming. Don’t believe their unproven allegations! Put your hope in the risen Jesus, not in people who trash other people because they don’t like their political positions.

American politics has become like a wrestling show, with both candidates desperately taking turns slamming each other down and fiercely describing how evil the other one is. (What if they are both correct in their evaluation of each other?)

Because there is evil in all human beings and power tends to bring the worst of it out, the American government was set up in 3 branches so that no one person (or group of people) can have total power and control. Divided government can be frustrating, but it sure beats having all the power in the hands of one individual. Instead of “fighting” each other, America needs the people in power to find ways to peacefully work together. If you want one party to forcefully impose its will on the other, you are working against the foundational American concept of the separation of power.

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Your Heart Can Travel When Your Body’s Stuck at Home

I live in Nashville, Tennessee. The most miles I’ve traveled from away from home was on a trip I took to India. I volunteered in that nation for three months and it was an amazing experience. However, the furthest I have ever traveled from my American home was my journey from darkness to light.

I was an agnostic college freshman. I sensed that there was more to life than our physical existence, but I I was stuck in darkness and couldn’t see any convincing evidence of that. A classmate kept inviting me to a weekly meeting that he called “Dorm Devotion.” I wasn’t interested, but he wouldn’t leave me alone, so I finally attended in order to get him stop pestering me.

I heard something in that meeting that I had never heard before — people talking about Jesus Christ like He is real, alive, present, and working in their lives. As they testified something happened inside of me. I suddenly became aware that Jesus is alive and with me. As if a switch had been switched, I could feel myself being changed from deep within me. Ever since that moment, I’ve been filled with the awareness of Christ in me and hungry to follow and obey Him and to know Him better and better.

Genesis 3:5 (Life-Plan B) / Revelation 12:11 (Life-Plan A)

Satan’s plan
Is disguised
As a blessing,
Wrapped up in
The self-focus
Of self-defining
The nature of
Good and evil,
So that people
Will replace
The desires of God
With their own desires
And be forever
Separated from
God’s Tree of Life.
But God’s plan
Is that the blood
Of Jesus Christ
Will renew your life
So that Christ
Will live in you
As you tell
The glorious story
Of how Jesus
Has set you free
From sin and self-focus.

When the risen Jesus becomes real in your life and you rely on His blood to continually remove your guilt and shame, you feel so wonderful that you can’t help telling people about what He has done and is doing in you. Then the more you testify about Jesus the more excited you get about Him and the freer you are from the bondage of self-focus. Isn’t it time that you open the door of your heart and let the living Jesus moment by moment align your life with His plan? (See Revelation 3:20.)

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The Home You Can Count On

Rely on
Christ alone,
The Cornerstone.
Sing His song
As you go along.
Let Him help you,
Protect you,
And support you.
Let Him put
His desires
In your heart
And align you
With what He requires.
Live in full reliance
On His presence
And daily surrender
To His will
So you can
Overflow with
The joyful thrill
Of the victory
Of Christ in you
The hope of glory.

Go beyond acquiring
Mere head knowledge
About Jesus.
Let your life acknowledge
His reality through
All your words and steps,
The way you walk,
The way you talk.
Demonstrate His presence
Continually at work
In and through you
In all you say and do!

When people think
That they know
What they don't know,
They put on a show
Of overconfidence.
When they know
That they know
What they know,
They speak the truth
In love and
With the humility
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People Who Radiate Hope Bring a Tear to My Eye.

We don’t need a lecture about love. We need to care deeply about each other.

We don’t need an explanation of what joy is. We need to enjoy life.

We don’t need to be preached to about peace. We need to stop fighting one another.

We don’t need to be told to be patient. We need to wait on the Lord.

We don’t need a discourse on kindness. We need to be nice to people.

We don’t need a teaching about goodness. We need to celebrate the goodness of God.

We don’t need to hear the definition of faithfulness. We need to demonstrate faith in and daily reliance on the risen Jesus.

We don’t need a message about gentleness. We need to handle life with gratitude and great care.

We don’t need a sermon about self-control. We need to obey the risen Jesus instead of our feelings, desires, and opinions.

Christians don’t need to study or memorize the 9 aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. We need to demonstrate them in our daily life.

Information about God is insufficient. Christians desperately need the conscious awareness of God!

Too many Christians want sermons about the presents of Jesus without His presence. Too many churches want to keep teaching information about God week after week after week, while neglecting to make people aware of the presence, power, and reality of the living Jesus. Because of that many Christians are “always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7.) The risen Jesus is the truth! If you don’t know Him and daily live in His presence, all the Bible knowledge in the world won’t show you the truth!

Information-based Christianity leads to comfortable religious pride. However, faith that is based on the presence, power, and reality of the risen Jesus produces a never-ending inner spiritual fountain of the life of Jesus flowing out of a person like rivers of living water. When I see that, it brings a tear to my eye.

Demonstrating the love, presence, and forgiveness of the living Jesus is a much more effective way to change the world than by insulting people who you disagree with politically. Try it and see!

Blogging Helps Free Me from Self-Focus

My greatest moments of joy and self-contentment are moments of self-unawareness. The best self-help isn’t self-expression. It’s self-denial that avoids self-inflicted pain.

Self-focus isn’t self-care. It’s self-entanglement. Self-indulgence leads to the self-reproach of self-inflicted guilt.

Self-will will keep you imprisoned in self-driven desires. Humbling yourself will release you from your self-locked cell. If self-attention was a good thing people wouldn’t want to self-medicate to get their mind off of their self-narrative.

Without self-restraint of self-attention and self-pity, negative thoughts and desires will lead to self-afflicted fear and insecurity. Lack of self-control leads to self-torment and self-destructive beliefs and behaviors.

Self-promotion leads to devotion to the false god of pride. Your self-doubt is a wakeup call to rely on God instead of on yourself. Self-love goes nowhere. It stays stuck in orbit around self-centeredness but receiving Christ’s love launches people far beyond the gravitational pull of self-concern.

Self-absorption is self-abuse. Peace and joy come through self-forgetfulness that gets swept up in the awe of God. The greater my self-awareness the more I realize my selfishness and my desperate need for Jesus.

Self-righteousness is self-deception. We humans all need the humble self-correction that’s called repentance.

Self-satisfaction isn’t found by self-seeking but by seeking first the kingdom (inner government) of God with all your heart. The way to true self-esteem is full self-surrender to the risen Jesus.

Self-justification can never talk away guilt. Self-forgiveness without God’s forgiveness is meaningless. Base your self-worth on Christ’s forgiveness and love for you, not on your love for yourself or your self-forgiveness.

Focusing on the Word of God and the presence of the risen Jesus needs to be greater than our focus on self. God wants to show us more. Will we let Him, even if it goes against our self-consumed desires, feelings, and opinions?

My wife and I can sometimes fall into self-indulgence, like we did with “MegaTacos” at a mall in San Jose, Costa Rica. (See why I need to keep blogging?)

Hate Ain’t Great

Getting trumped up with anger and personal attacks against people you disagree with isn’t the way to advance greatness in America. I don’t think that saying about your political opponent, “She can go to Hell,” will advance America’s greatness. To pump up hatred and to continually dump personal insults on your political opponent sounds like cruelty, not greatness.

I believe that a presidential candidate claiming that he has a right to personally attack his opponent is the most dangerous thing that has happened in America since the Civil War. Kindness and respect matter! We need to stand down, before it is too late!

When facts become old fashioned people flee from truth in order to find fictions and fabrications to put their faith in. I don’t want to believe or proclaim anything by hearsay or by my deceptive feelings of being “pretty sure.” As a Christ-follower I want to stand on truth, not on my feelings, desires, or opinions.

Someone who is arrogant, angry, bitter, unforgiving, vulgar, and insulting doesn’t represent Christian values! A presidential election can’t make a country great. Only a wide-spread spiritual awakening can do that!

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Interviewing King David

I open my heart when I read the writings of Kind David, and I hear his heart as I focus on his words. I felt like I was interviewing him this morning as I read his poem known as Psalm 1. King David’s poetry inspired me to write this poem:

A Blessed Life (Psalm 1)

Spirit-prompted poetry
Can point us to the tree
In the center of God’s Garden
And call us to make
God’s Tree of Life
The central focus
Of our life.

The Tree of the Knowledge
Of Good and Evil
Tries to distract
Us from the abstract–
God’s invisible reality
And present-day presence–
And to attract
Us to self-reliance.

If you choose to go
Only by what you think
That you know,
The wind of proud desires
Will blow you away
From the Spirit-led life
That God inspires!

Sit at the feet of Jesus
To partake of
His streams of water.
Stand with the Tree of Life
So your leaf won’t wither
And leave you full of strife.
Walk as led by God’s Spirit
So you can prosper
In His will.

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I’m Feeling Grateful for the Humanity in All People

This morning as I pondered the attitude of respect of people’s humanity, a gratefulness grew in my heart. Now I’m feeling thankful for the humanity that is in all human beings (even when we overlook it). Here are some of my morning thoughts:

People are the most incredible beings on planet earth and should be treated with great respect.

Respect people’s humanity whether or not you approve of their behaviors and beliefs. To be kind to people even when you disagree with their beliefs and behaviors is to show them great respect.

Every person is a mixture of good and bad. When you think about someone focus on the good in them and have mercy on the bad.

Without self-respect, people are quick to disrespect others.

Disrespect is the enemy of greatness! For America (or any other country) to be great requires that people continually treat each other with great kindness and respect.

Treat people like human beings, not like throwaway plastic water bottles.

When you look at someone see a human being, not a threat, a worldview, a political position, or a lifestyle.

To belittle people because of their beliefs and behaviors is to be little. To be speak the truth with kindness and respect is to be great.

To refuse to respect the humanity in people who you disagree with is inhumane.

If you disrespect the humanity of people who disagree with you (and/or people you don’t like), you’ll treat them with disgust.

Treating people with disrespect is the inclination of the insecure. When you disagree with people you don’t have to disrespect them.

Honor the objective reality that the people you disagree with are human beings, not your subjective feelings of disrespect for them.

Even when people are disrespectful to you, you can continue to show respect for their humanity.

People who treat people with disrespect have no real respect for themselves.

To disrespect kindness, ethics and moral principles is to devalue your own humanity.

I believe that taking innocent human life disrespects humanity and is morally wrong whether it is in Gaza or in a womb.

Physical intimacy without holy heart-connection is a neglection of the most beautiful and powerful part of sex and disrespects the value another human being.

From prenatal life to hospice care, humanity should be respected.

Daily experiencing Christ’s presence, love, and forgiveness will meet your need for respect and empower you to show kindness and respect to all people.

Christians are supposed to speak the truth with love and kindness, not to disrespect people’s humanity.

To truly respect God’s story is to respect the humanity in all people by showing them God’s love, whether we like them or not, or agree with them or not.

Social media presents a choice for Christians. We can plant seeds of respect for all humanity and humble discipleship. Or we can plant seeds of comfortable Christianity and pride. It’s time to sow the seeds that make people want to be respect-filled disciples of the living Jesus, not just passive spectators in religious services.

The Daily Habit of a Funny Way of Walking

I have developed the daily habit of an unusual way of walking. It isn’t very popular and looks rather odd, but it sure improves my life and fills me with peace and joy. Let me tell you about it.

Here’s a quote from a man named Lo Alaman: “I believe the blessing that God is inviting us to is that our stories would begin to look more like His.” (For that to happen we need to get in step with the Spirit. If you keep in step with the times, you’ll spend your time staying out of step with God’s Spirit.)

Let God’s Spirit
Set your pace
So His grace
Can lead you
To the place
He wants you to be.

Every Spirit-led step that you take leads you closer to God. If you are seeking to follow and obey the risen Jesus, step it up! If not, step up to the plate so you can “taste and see that the Lord is good”! Step back from your desires and plans so you can step forward in God’s Spirit.

When people walk in the Spirit, they are like a tree planted by streams of water. There’s a spring in their step. Christ’s rivers of living water overflow from within them.

When people offend you and step on your toes, step up in God’s Spirit to bless them and show them His kindness. Step back from your pride and you’ll step forward in God’s Spirit. Watch for Christ’s steps and follow them!

A Spirit-led journey begins with a single Spirit-led step. Take a first step today. To walk in the Spirit, take one Spirit-led step after another, day after day, until you grow from a Spirit-led-toddler into a Spirit-led-mountain-climber.

You learn to take Spirit-led steps by stepping out to obey the promptings of God’s Spirit. Count the steps that truly count. How many Spirit-led steps will you take today?

(Refuse to stay stuck in box steps when God is calling you to walk in the Spirit. Remember that Jesus will be working in and through you every Spirit-led step of the way!)

Let your shoes
Be led by the Spirit.
Begin to choose
To follow God’s
Inner cues.

It’s time for Christians to daily walk the Sunday Bible talk. We must do more than just sit through sermon after sermon and ignore what was said.

Step aside
From your pride
And get in stride
With God’s Spirit.

When Jesus is real in someone’s heart, their words and their life demonstrate that they believe that He’s present with them 24/7/365. I didn’t believe Jesus was real until He started working in my life over and over and over again!

Jesus has a question for people around the world today. Will you set aside your opinions, feelings, and desires and follow Me instead? If your country needs a savior (and they all do), look to the risen Jesus, Himself, not to any other person.

When I walk in the Spirit, I respect people too much to call them names or insult their intelligence just because they disagree with me. If you don’t respect people’s right to disagree with you (without you insulting them), perhaps you aren’t very secure in your beliefs and opinions. Begin to walk in the Spirit and kindness will grow in your heart.

People used to
Hear each other out.
Now they go about
Insulting the people
Who disagree with them.

The British rock band, The Struts, sings:

“Don’t wanna live as an untold story
Rather go out in a blaze of glory.”

The way to do that is to humbly walk in God’s Spirit, day and night.

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I’m Always Searching and Looking For . . .

Eye health is vital to vision. Without healthy eyes we can’t see clearly. We need to take good care of both our physical eyes and the eyes of our heart so that we can keep them healthy and clearly see what can make our life better.

Healthy Eyes?

If you’ll keep Jesus
Always in your sight,
You will delight
In His presence
Both day and night.

Look unto Jesus.
See Him who
Is invisible.
Behold the Lamb of God.
Look not at the things
That are seen,
But at the things
That are unseen.
Then humbly
Show and tell
What you’ve seen and heard!

To cultivate
Awareness of
Christ in you
Continually
Contemplate,
Concentrate,
And meditate
On His presence.

Christianity
Is so much more
Than a short walk
From your car
Into a church
To hear a talk
On Sunday morning.

Anything that smothers
The fifty something
New Testament
“One anothers”
Makes it difficult
For Christians
To see into
Each other’s heart
And love as sisters
And brothers.

What a person does and says when not in a church service reveals much more about the condition of the person’s heart than church attendance does. Jesus never said, “Take a seat.” He said, “Go and make disciples.” The way to grow closer to Jesus is to go and do what He tells you to throughout each day.

I see Jesus doing so many amazing things in my life. I can’t help but stay excited about Him!

Here’s a newly released movie currently in theaters that clearly demonstrates how to see with the eyes of your heart. I saw it yesterday and it is powerful! Go see The Forge.

The Forge Poster