Steve Simms's Blog, page 47

Life Gets Better with Maturity, Not with Age

Daily writing promptWhat do you think gets better with age?View all responses

Life improves with maturity, not with the mere passing of time and the passive accumulation of years. Maturity has taught me that life is a great gift that gets better and better the more I appreciate it and the more I cultivate gratitude in my heart.

Invasive thoughts force their way into the human mind to torment and manipulate people into agreement with them. Maturity has taught me that I need to resist, refute, reject, and repel with rigor every anxious and every rebellious thought that invades my mind. As I get older, I’m growing day by day in peace, contentment, gratitude, and joy. Here’s how:

By “fixing our eyes on Jesus,” “the Righteous One,” and hearing what He says within us we can be witnesses of what we’ve seen and heard. That’s the testimony that overcomes the power of darkness. (See Revelation 12:11.) The risen Jesus politely knocks and speaks with a gentle voice saying, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

There’s no expiration date on the voice of Jesus. He’s still speaking to His sheep.

Some people believe that Jesus isn’t speaking to me and to multitudes of other people around the world. But whoever or whatever is speaking to us in the name of Jesus is making our lives wonderful! Listen and see for yourself!

What are you waiting for? Call now on His name. Look now with the eyes of your heart. Listend now with the ears of your spirit. Begin now to be led by His Spirit throughout each day. Resolve right now to ever speak and testify to what you’ve seen and heard the risen Jesus say and do. With God all things are Him-possible!

(If you’ve experienced what I’m talking about, leave a comment on this post and testify now. “I know that nothing is impossible with God because . . .: Complete the sentence.)

Here’s mine. I know that nothing is impossible with God because He puts thoughts in my mind and when I obey the inner promptings of His still small voice amazing things happen. He recently told me to “Trust more and try less.” Since I’ve been actively seeking to trust and rely on Him no matter what, instead of trying to make what I want happen, I’ve been experiencing the most inner peace I’ve ever had.

[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-40321" />Photo by Nashua Volquez-Young on Pexels.com

Every Moment is Wake Up Time

Daily writing promptWhat time do you go to bed and wake up currently?View all responses

Life can easily be lived in a sort of sleepwalking state — going through outward motions but not being fully aware of and awake to what is happening within and around you. Every moment is a good time to wake up from that dazed and blurred existence. How?

Hear what God’s Spirit is saying, even when He asks you things like, “Why do you persecute Me?” Jesus’ sheep listen to His inner voice. “Get up and go to . . . There you will be told all that you are assigned to do.” Surrender your will to Christ’s Lordship (His absolute authority). Throughout each day go and do what He tells you to.

Jesus want’s you in His will more than you want to be in His will. If you will humbly and continually listen to and obey His heart promptings, the Good Shepherd will speak in your inner being and personally lead you and keep you in His will. Hearing the risen Jesus speak revelation knowledge in your heart surpasses human understanding. Rely on Him, not on your own knowledge.

Life’s a great gift! Be filled with gratitude for each breath. ““This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him.” Put to bed your guilt and shame, your worries and fears. Wake up to Christ’s glorious gift of forgiveness and inner peace.

[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-40314" />Photo by Alena Shekhovtcova on Pexels.com

Language Learning is Increasing Comfort in My Daily Life

Daily writing promptWhat strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?View all responses

I felt prompted to get serious about learning Spanish at age 71 and began to watch YouTube videos in Spanish for an hour or more almost every day and to read at least one chapter in my Spanish New Testament every day. I eventually discovered Duo Lingo and began using it for a half hour or more each day.

After 9 months two families from southern Mexico moved in next door to me (not a coincidence). My wife and I got to know and love them, and I get to use my Spanish with them a lot. After 10 months I attended a Spanish immersion school in Costa Rico for two weeks and stayed in the home of a local family. It was an amazing way to share the Gospel with the family, with my teachers, and with my fellow students who were from the USA, Canada, and Germany. (When they asked me how I was learning Spanish I told them that I was reading the Bible in Spanish every day. That opened the door for me to share my faith with them.)

It has now been a year and a half since I started and I’m continuing with my daily activities in Spanish and really enjoying them. Experiencing Spanish, using it, and understanding it is much different than hearing a talk about it. The same with the risen Jesus.

I woke up this morning with this poem and the following paragraph forming in my heart and mind before I got out of bed:

Jesus calls
Like Niagara Falls.
Come close to Me
So you can see
And experience
My reality.
Let me surround you
With My living water
So that you stay soaked
And spiritually stoked
With the mist
Of My presence.
Let me rock your boat
And train you to trust Me
To keep you afloat.
Keep coming near
And you will hear
My holy roar
Drowning out
All your fear and doubt.
Don’t just visit once
And think you’re done.
Live every moment
Vividly
Aware of Me,
Christ, the Son
Of the living God.

I heard about Niagra Falls all my life, but it was just words in my mind until I rode a boat into its horseshoe shape and was surrounded and shaken by its majestic reality. Words about Jesus are nothing like His literal presence. Do whatever it takes to experience His glorious, life-transforming reality, not just once, but continually live your life in intense awareness of His presence throughout each day.

A Return to “Conscienceness” — Awareness of and Faithfulness to the Inner Moral Compass

Daily writing promptWhat are you most excited about for the future?View all responses

I believe that the disharmony and chaos in contemporary culture will eventually lead to a return to “conscienceness” — awareness of and faithfulness to the inner moral compass called the conscience. I believe that the human conscience is a supernatural gift from the living God given to us to show us how to live a beautiful life. I’m excited and looking forward to seeing the heroes who will boldly and compassionately obey and speak their conscience in the face of public disapproval. I believe that will lead to a spiritual awakening of the joy of early Christianity.

Let God arise inside of you. Let Him lead you from within and guide you as He speaks in and through your conscience.

Our conscience can be programmed and deceived by our culture and by our own free will. It’s common for us humans to justify disobeying our conscience and to try to make it approve of our feelings and desires.

Our conscience isn’t God, but it is a gift from God to help lead us to the abundant life He wants for all people. All of us humans would be better off if we would cultivate sensitivity to our conscience rather than hardening our heart to it.

When a country continually encourages people to ignore their conscience and embrace corruption, its citizens become captives to controlling desires. We live in a time when society and its seemingly omnipresent media are constantly tempting people to be unfaithful to their conscience–to lie, flatter, and harbor deception, to boast of freedom while they are prisoners of their own desires. As for me, my conscience tells me some things are wrong and I can’t say they are right just to make people happy.

The Key to Inner Harmony

Daily writing promptWhat could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?View all responses

For inner peace
And harmony
I let go of
Focus on me.

Holy Spirit,
Take my life
And steer it.
Touch my heart
And clear it
So when you speak
I hear it.

If you’re unaware of the Holy Spirit working inside of you, you’re overlooking the key to God’s kingdom, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” To live in glorious harmony with God is to align your life and your will with the risen Jesus and let the harmony of Heaven’s symphony freely flow within you. God’s harmony gives me peace, makes me happy, and causes me to smile from deep within.

[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-40294" />Photo by Maria Gulyaeva on Pexels.com

Music from the Heart that Speaks to People About Jesus

Daily writing promptWhat is your favorite genre of music?View all responses

Use Words

“Please let me speak to the people.”
Paul, who was sent by Jesus
Said those words to solders
Tying to protect him
From an angry mob
Who had made it their job
To attack and kill him.
All Christ-followers are sent
With important things to say
We shouldn’t be silent
And hide or run away.
We’re sent to be Christ’s light
Everywhere and every day.
To speak the truth in love,
It’s necessary to use words.
Please speak to the people
About the risen Jesus
And His invitation
To be forgiven
And set free.
(Acts 21:39.)

[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-40289" />Photo by Mike Bird on Pexels.com

My Vacation from the Culture of Conflict and Chaos

Daily writing promptDescribe your most memorable vacation.View all responses

We live in a culture of conflict, confusion, and chaos and it’s very easy to get caught up in it and captured by it. I’m on a long, memorable vacation from consuming its content and letting it coerce me into its image. Instead of being conformed to the culture, my goal is to influence it with a more hopeful and wholesome way of thinking and acting.

It’s human nature to want to silence and get rid of any voice that speaks against the things that make us comfortable. That’s why true freedom of speech is rare in human history. That’s why people who sincerely follow the inner leading and direction of the risen Jesus have been persecuted throughout the last 2,000 years (often by religious people who see them as a threat to their religious hierarchy and established traditions).

In the Bible Christ-followers didn’t bully, coerce, or try to use the government to make people live by their standards. They humbly spoke the truth in love and suffered verbal and physical attacks without retaliating. They blessed those who cursed them.

The first Christians didn’t conform to the verbal abuse or the physical violence of their culture. They transcended it. They were in the world but not of it–living with their minds transformed and renewed by Christ’s inner presence and supernatural perspective.

The transformation that matters most is inner transformation. That happens when the mind shifts its focus away from the demands and dictatorship of dominating desires and self-protection and aligns with the wisdom of the conscience (“Christ in you, the hope of glory,”) thus empowering a person to be in a crazed culture but not be conformed to it–to be a living example of clear thinking, inner peace, kindness, and joy.

A mind that is captured by the desire for comfort and surrendered to self-focus needs to be renewed and transformed by a better way of thinking. It takes courage to live in a culture that is caught up in confusion and not be conformed to its chaotic thinking.

The idea that someone hates, fears, or judges you just because they disagree with some of your behaviors or beliefs is irrational. If we won’t be kind to people who disagree with or disapprove of our lifestyle and world view, we’re not following the risen Jesus.  Staged Christianity creates religious spectators who tend to be conformed to the comfort, carnality, and triviality of world around them, but where are the disciples whose hearts are constantly engaged in loving, adoring, and obeying the risen Jesus and demonstrating His command to bless those who curse you?

The Gospel of Luke and the other 3 Gospels in the Bible present Jesus as loving, passionate, provocative, and fiery. They never present Him as lukewarm.

[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-40282" />Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

I’ve Studied and Practiced Ekklesia More Than Most People Have

Daily writing promptOn what subject(s) are you an authority?View all responses

I’ve studied, personally experienced, and practiced ekklesia (the ancient Greek participatory town hall meeting that Jesus said He would build) more than most people have but doesn’t make me “an authority.” I’m more of an exhorter and encourager of that kind of radical Christianity. Christ, Himself, is the authority and I try to continually listen to and obey Him regardless of the consequences. Here’s some of what has come to my heart and mind this morning.

Pastors who are not willing to be run out of town because of what they preach are dangerous. They train Christians to follow their example of image-management, appeasement strategies, self-protection, and casual Christianity. They encourage people in the congregation to believe that pleasing people is more important than radical obedience to Jesus. They promote routine religion that is based on mere (one time) verbal acknowledgement of Christ rather than on daily trusting in and relying on the grace, power, and presence of the risen Jesus.

Some early Christ-followers are quoted as saying, “We must obey God rather than men!” That statement cost them. They paid by being rejected, run out of town, tortured, imprisoned, and murdered for their refusal to abandon (or tone down) their daily reliance, love for, and obedience to the living, resurrected Jesus.

Their example of putting and keeping Jesus first (above all other claims on their loyalty), at the cost of extreme suffering, demonstrated their sold-out daily dependence on the reality and presence of the living Jesus. People who saw how they blessed those who cursed them and prayed for those who despitefully used them, were convinced that they couldn’t have responded that way to such cruelty and abuse without the supernatural reality of Jesus. Their example of depending on Jesus despite their suffering caused so many people to begin to surrender to and rely on Jesus that this phrase became well known in the Roman Empire: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the ekklesia (Christ’s participatory town hall meeting).”

If you know how to listen to, obey, and daily rely on the risen Jesus, train a few other people to do it so that you can follow Jesus together as His participatory town hall meeting. We need many multitudes of mini meetings of the body of Christ where Christians encourage and train one another to fully embrace and live out the grace that gives them supernatural power to obey God instead of men.

[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-40277" />Photo by Tony Boyd on Pexels.com

The Rainbow Invites Us into a Divine Romance

Daily writing promptWhat’s your definition of romantic?View all responses

The rainbow is an invitation into a divine romance. It is the promise of a beautiful future and the offer of a heart-to-heart relationship with the living God. The next time you see a rainbow let it move your heart with the glorious splendor of God, to the point that you fully surrender your all to His will.

Embrace the Christian faith. Lay down your personal desires so that you are free to adore, follow, and obey the risen Jesus.

Who will set aside
Ego and pride
And humbly say today,
“The Holy Spirit says,”
And who will say,
“Lord have your way,”?

When I see a rainbow
On the screen of the sky
Its glorious splendor
Makes my hope rise high
Far beyond self-focus
And proud humanity.

Jesus told His disciples,
“You will be my witnesses,”
And gave us the task
Of testifying to
The things that we
Have seen and heard
Christ say and do
Within us,
Even if we’re just a few.

I wrote this blog post on my wedding anniversary, so it is really my testimony to two amazing romances. 54 years ago, God let me meet the risen Jesus and gave me an ongoing divine romance with Him. 34 years ago today, God let me marry Ernie and gave me a beautiful romance with her that continues to this day!

[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-40269" />Photo by Ben Mack on Pexels.com

Expressing Gratitude Through Kindness (And Being Like a Potato)

Daily writing promptHow do you express your gratitude?View all responses

I express my gratitude for being alive by trying to be kind to everyone I meet. I have discovered that heartfelt politeness is powerful.

If you will without suspicion begin to be welcoming to strangers by showing them warmheartedness, courtesy, and a sincere smile, you will almost always receive a friendly response from them. You will touch the part of them that’s hungry for heart-to-heart human connection.

The next time you see a stranger make it your mission to express simple heart-felt kindness and observe the response you get. The stranger will feel better and will light up with warm facial expressions (and you will too). I experience that kind of response almost every time I express goodwill to a stranger. (There are exceptions where my kind approach is ignored or rebuffed but they are rare.)

I learned this by selling books door-to-door for three summers when I was in college. The first week of each summer I was given a week of training in positive thinking and sincere friendliness. Then I was sent to a strange city to knock on doors. I was amazed to see that my warm cheerfulness would usually (but not always) soften the heart of the person who answered the door, and we would have an uplifting encounter even if they didn’t by my books (or even take the time to look at them). I would leave them with an encouraging word and with gratitude for their time and then head to the next house.

Training your heart to be hospitable is lifechanging for you and for the people you encounter. Every person matters. If you will treat people like they do, they will usually respond positively to you. Don’t just take my word for it. Try it today and see for yourself.

Be like a potato. Keep sprouting and growing your eyes no matter where life puts you. Always be on the lookout for creative ways to turn your problems into potato salad, French fries, hash browns, potato soup, chips, home fries, loaded potato skins, tater tots, and scalloped potatoes. When life bakes or roasts you, don’t be bitter, be better (like a baked or roasted potato). When life crushes you let it make you as delightful as delicious mashed potatoes.

When tears come
Try not to be
Quick to clean them up
And wipe them away.
The drops that ooze
From your eyes
And leave tracks
On your cheeks
Are a sign
That shows that
Your heart is alive.