Steve Simms's Blog, page 48

Avoiding World War 3

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

The Russia Ukraine War, the ongoing slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza, or any of the many other wars and threats of war around the globe could easily trigger Word War Three and lead to the killings of hundreds of millions of people and make life unbearable for any survivors. Nuclear war is a horrific but real possibility.

I love people from every nationality, ethnic, and racial grouping–from every political persuasion, from every religion, from every sexual description–regardless of whether or not I approve of their views, beliefs, or lifestyle. Hateful attitudes, threats, violence, and war break my heart. They are kindling for a fire that can easily devour our planet. I am greatly concerned that we turn away from the worldwide inferno that we are stirring up before it is too late.

Peace isn’t a luxury. It’s essential that we change the worldwide contemporary narrative from blame, name calling, and accusing people of hatred just because they disagree with our beliefs and behaviors. There are many issues on which people will never agree, but we can begin to disagree with kindness and compassion, to speak the truth in love and humility, to listen to one another, and to treat each other with respect even when we disagree or disapprove.

Perhaps the biggest danger for a worldwide nuclear inferno is the Russian Ukraine war. Here’s my peace proposal to end it before it is too late:

1) Ukraine officially cedes to Russia, Crimea and most of the territory in Ukraine that Russia has controlled the past two years.

2) Russia agrees that its new territory will be a demilitarized zone with no heavy military arms (except for 100 lightly armed Russian troops to serve as a trigger if Ukraine should ever try to take it back).

3) Ukraine receives NATO defense rights but is not allowed to be an official member. NATO will put no more than 100 lightly armed troops in Ukraine. They will be stationed in Eastern Ukraine to serve as a trigger if Russia ever attacks Ukraine again. Ukraine troops will not be allowed to train with NATO or be stationed in any NATO country.

4) Russia agrees that if it breaks the agreement by increasing its troops beyond the limit in former Ukrainian territory, Ukraine has the right to immediately become a full member of NATO with full membership benefits and responsibilities.

5) Ukraine agrees that if it or breaks the agreement, it immediately loses its protection rights from NATO.

6) NATO agrees to the plan and agrees that if it should put more than 100 lightly armed troops in Ukraine that Russia has a right to see that as an act of war and respond accordingly.

We all can’t make peace in Ukraine, but we can all do this:

When the foundations are being destroyed, comfortable, sentimental, and powerless Christianity offers no help. It’s time to reach beyond routine religion and take refuge in the risen Lord. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Prepare the way of the Lord in your heart. Stir up the gift that is in you. Be led from within by God’s Spirit. Courageously follow and obey the voice of Jesus, the living Word. Let Christ in you be your hope of glory.

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Wise, Heart-Felt Spontaneity

Daily writing promptWhat makes a teacher great?View all responses

What the world needs now is people who will open their heart to wise, Spirit-prompted spontaneity. We all need mentors and teachers like that. While the world is trash talking, Christ-followers need to be transformation talking and spontaneously sharing how the living Jesus became real to them and transformed their life.

My goal is to live my life by spontaneously following and obeying the Holy Spirit’s promptings. The spontaneous overflow of Christ in you, turns Christianity into the most powerful and amazing lifestyle on earth. Go with Christ’s inner flow! Spirit-led spontaneity is incredible. Listen to the risen Jesus, do what He says, and you’ll be amazed! Christianity without Spirit-prompted spontaneity gets locked into routine.

Some of the impulses, impressions, and inclinations that happen within you are directly from the Holy Spirit. If you will learn to recognize them and begin to obey them, then you’ll start to regularly experience the supernatural reality of the living God. You can’t follow and obey the inner impressions, impulses, and inclinations of God’s Spirit if you’re unwilling to notice them.

According to the Bible, it’s essential that Christians learn to recognize and follow Spirit-prompted impulses and inclinations. “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” (Romans 8:14.) To be led by God’s Spirit requires spontaneity. Spontaneous behavior doesn’t follow a program or plan. It occurs as a result of an inner prompting that comes without planning or external stimulation.

The fear of God’s spontaneity causes Christians to focus on routine religion. Christianity has become so planned and programmed that it has lost the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit who freely moves like the wind. It’s extremely rare for God’s Spirit to be allowed to interrupt the predetermined order of a church service. Predictable Christianity has abandoned the spontaneity of God’s Spirit.

The time and place for Spirit-led spontaneity is any time and any place the Holy Spirit tells you to say or do something. However, there’s no room for Christ’s spontaneity in a church service that’s carefully planned and rigorously controlled.

Routine religion has no sails to catch and freely flow with the wind of God’s Spirit, so it puts along with the trolling motor of patterns and procedures. When the freedom to spontaneously hear and obey the living Jesus is shut down, the Holy Spirit is quenched.

The most amazing encounters I have ever had with Christ are Spirit-prompted, unplanned and unprogrammed. The more I directly listen to and obey the risen Jesus, the more I’m aware of His presence and power working in and through me.

Spirit-led spontaneity requires the boldness to bend beyond the box of routine religion. Assessment, appraisal, and analysis of the Bible without the spontaneity of the Spirit’s leading can produce a biblical theology but not a Christ-empowered lifestyle that overflows with the fruit of God’s Spirit.

Christianity without Christaneity (Jesus-prompted spontaneity) is stuck in the rut of routine religion. Let’s go beyond that! Be Christaneous! Prepare the way of the Lord. Make room for Spirit-led spontaneity in your life! Listen to and obey Christ in you and let things happen supernaturally.

"Christ in you,
The hope of glory."
It's time to let
Jesus do
What He wants to
In and through you
So people can see
The working
Of His glory
And experience
The reality
Of His story.

Christians need to start
To learn the art
Of obeying
The prompting
Of God's Spirit.

People who are
Led by God's Spirit
Produce the fruit
Of the Spirit.
If you aren't
Growing the fruit
You're out of
God's loop.
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“Nobody Gets Everything They Want” (A Peace Proposal for Russia and Ukraine to Prevent WW3)

1) Ukraine officially cedes to Russia, Crimea and most of the territory in Ukraine that Russia has controlled the past two years.

2) Russia agrees that its new territory will be a demilitarized zone with no heavy military arms (except for 100 lightly armed Russian troops to serve as a trigger if Ukraine should ever try to take it back).

3) Ukraine receives NATO defense rights but is not allowed to be an official member. NATO will put no more than 100 lightly armed troops in Ukraine. They will be stationed in Eastern Ukraine to serve as a trigger if Russia ever attacks Ukraine again. Ukraine troops will not be allowed to train with NATO or be stationed in any NATO country.

4) Russia agrees that if it breaks the agreement by increasing its troops beyond the limit in former Ukrainian territory, Ukraine has the right to immediately become a full member of NATO with full membership benefits and responsibilities.

5) Ukraine agrees that if it or breaks the agreement, it immediately loses its protection rights from NATO.

6) NATO agrees to the plan and agrees that if it should put more than 100 lightly armed troops in Ukraine that Russia has a right to see that as an act of war and respond accordingly.

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I had a heart transplant.

Daily writing promptHave you ever had surgery? What for?View all responses

This happened to me. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” My stoney heart was removed and I God replaced it with a tender, compassionate heart. I was born again.

In the Bible Paul commits people who he has told about Jesus “to God and to the word of His grace” — to the message (story, testimony) about God’s undeserved favor. Every true Christ-follower has a word about how they encountered and were transformed by God’s grace.

Speaking about Christ-followers the Bible says that God “has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Jesus calls that being “born again.” If you have been born again, how did it happen to you? Was it a gradual process or did it happen suddenly? When you describe how you were born again, that’s called your testimony. (See Revelation 12:11.)

The Bible talks about a mystery that it calls “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” If Jesus Christ is living inside of you, what difference does He make in your life? What was your life like before Jesus came to live within you? When and how did Jesus begin to reside in you? What is your life like now that Christ is living in you? Testify. Tell people all about it.

If Christ is in you, telling people about how that happened is powerful. It’s the word (story) of God’s grace working in you and the Bible says that it overcomes the devil and his accusations against you. Leave your comfort zone and begin to tell your salvation testimony every chance you get.

I can’t be quiet about what God has done and is doing in my life because some people accuse me of judging them just because I testify about what He shows me. Don’t let people’s criticism and accusations stop you either! When they accuse you of hate, show them humility and compassion by speaking the truth in love.

If you have never experienced God’s heart transplant and been born again, you are missing out on the greatest experience of my life! Here’s my testimony.

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Trying to See and Hear Beyond Soundbites

Daily writing promptWhat are your daily habits?View all responses

I have the daily habit of trying to see and hear beyond soundbites. In today’s culture of anything goes lifestyles and religions that’s not an easy thing to do.

The Bible warns us: “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!” One way that is being done is through Bible soundbites. Here’s an example:

This is the ignored and forgotten part of a sentence in the Bible. “. . . but God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.” The first part says: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him . . .” The first part without the second part is an incomplete soundbite that is often quoted alone. That misleads people into believing that their experience of God is limited to what their eyes can see and what their ears can hear, but the truth is that God is trying to supernaturally reveal Himself to people all the time, yet we rarely open the invisible eyes and ears of our heart. When the eyes and the ears of our heart are shut down, our seeing and hearing are limited to the physical world, and we can’t see and hear the glory of the Lord. Where are the Christ-followers who will warn people “day and night with their tears?”

The Holy Spirit wants to show you things that eye can’t see, and ear can hear. Learn to look and listen with your heart. The best glasses and the best hearing aids are a humble heart that’s hungering and thirsting to experience more and more of Jesus.

Knowing God involves more than the human eye can see or the ear can hear. It requires insight that only God can reveal to people. Unless you literally perceive the actual presence of God, He will seem like only a theory in your mind. If you aren’t allowing God to constantly work in your heart, Bible knowledge will do you little good. Sound doctrine and teaching require more than religious head knowledge!

To settle for less than continually interacting with “Christ in you the hope of glory,” is to miss the whole point of Christianity. If instead of becoming institutionalized Christians would let the risen Jesus continually revitalize them from within, their faith would be ever on fire!

Unless you see and hear directly from God, with the invisible eyes and ears of your heart, you will never know what it means to be led by the Spirit. You won’t know what it is to have the Holy Spirit warn you.

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My Witness to Sustainable Life

Daily writing promptAre there things you try to practice daily to live a more sustainable lifestyle?View all responses

Witnessing about what’s good and hopeful makes a life of peace and joy more sustainable. It increases my hope. To witness is to experience something. To be a witness is to tell what you’ve experienced. If you have experienced hope and encouragement, be a witness. Share it with others.

Unless you witness to it, people won’t know the many things that God is doing and has done in and around you. Go tell someone!

If you have witnessed God do anything, tell somebody! Without witnesses people will think that God isn’t doing much. A Christ-follower should be a witness, always pointing out the living Jesus, not a promoter pointing to self-acclaim. When few people are willing to personally witness to what the risen Jesus is doing, people begin to think that He’s not doing much.

Still, staying silent about what the risen Jesus is doing in and through them has become a way of life for far too many Christians. Perhaps they have hardened their heart and are no longer noticing Christ’s presence.

The power of a firsthand testimony about how Jesus is working in someone’s heart is immense. Don’t hide it! Humbly telling people how God is working in and around you can open up a conversation that might very well change their life.

If you’ve encountered Jesus, tell somebody. Jesus told His followers: “You shall be My witnesses.” If Jesus has done anything in your life, take the witness stand and testify about it.

Witnesses use words not to preach but to testify. Silence shuts down their witness. Speak up about what Jesus has done in you.

The way to witness about how Jesus is working in you is to speak from your heart with humility and honesty. Try it! Work on your willingness to listen directly to the risen Jesus so you can hear Him better and witness to what He tells you.

Effective Spirit-led witness to Christ is based on humility. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Christ’s Spirit-led witnesses bring a reality check. They testify (tell and show us) that there is more to life than we are seeing. They help us see what we’re missing so that we can taste and see greater peace and joy than we can imagine.

For Christ-followers the witness stand is everywhere they go. Will you take the stand for Christ? Your words that witness to the reality of the living Jesus may be the only witness that someone hears about Him.

It’s time for Christians
To fully realize
That we need
To verbalize
And put into words
What Jesus is doing
In and around us.
It hard to know
What motivates
A wordless witness.
Let people know
That anything good
They see in you
Comes from Jesus
Not from self-effort.

I witness Jesus
Working in, through
And around me
Every day,
So I can’t be silent.
I have to say,
The risen Jesus
Is the Way
To a sustainable life
Of peace and joy.

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The Pleasure of Sex

The purpose of the pleasure of sex isn’t self-gratification. It’s much greater than that. The pleasure of sex is designed to assure the reproduction of humanity and to connect a man and a woman heart-to-heart so they can build a beautiful life-long relationship of light and love, thus enriching each other, their children, and their community.

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Be Led by a Lion to Taste and See and Be Amazed!

Daily writing promptWhat’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?View all responses

These words from ancient history are powerful: “O taste and see.” People can tell us about an amazingly delicious food but until we taste and see for ourselves, their words are only hearsay. That’s the problem with modern Christianity. It tries to tell people about the glorious experience of following Jesus by using weak weekly religious talks alone when what people need are profound experiences with the risen present Jesus. “O taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Alexander the Great said: “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” Christians are called to be sheep led by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah — the risen Jesus! If Christians will come together to follow and obey the living Jesus instead of religious programs, they will change the world!

Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.” Churches should train Christ’s sheep to share what they hear God’s Spirit saying. Jesus went on to say, “And they follow Me.” Follow the risen Jesus, not routine religion. Sheep who ignore the Shepherd eventually get eaten by wolves.

When Christ’s sheep are kept silent and set in rows to hear a weekly religious speech they are sheared of the humble heart-to-heart sharing of Spirit-led community. When Christ’s sheep gather, let them all be free to speak as the Spirit prompts them.

Christianity isn’t about personalities and celebrities. Keep your eyes on Jesus alone! Talk about Jesus, not about a preacher. If the risen Jesus isn’t the center of attention in a church service, it’s way out of focus. I’ve always wondered why the name on a church sign is the name of a preacher instead of the name of Jesus.

Christians who like to talk up a preacher are missing the point. A preacher is a mere messenger who is supposed to focus people’s attention on the risen Jesus. Sheep who ignore the true Shepherd eventually get eaten by wolves.

None the less, for some reason churches and Christian conferences usually leave Jesus off the program. I don’t think I have ever seen this on a program: “Lord and Savior: Jesus Christ.” Churches need to stop counting sheep and begin to count on and rely on the presence of the living resurrected Jesus.

If the preacher doesn’t show up for church people get upset. If Jesus doesn’t show up people often don’t even notice. When you’re thinking about the church you attend who do you think of first, Jesus or the pastor?

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My Favorite Outfit Is Like “The Emperor’s New Clothes” — Invisible (but Not Imaginary)

Daily writing promptIf you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?View all responses

I love to dress for the success of overcoming distress! I love to have the belt of truth around my waist. Wearing honesty keeps me humble and real.

I cover my chest with the breastplate of righteousness by doing my best to obey my conscience and when I violate it to quickly get back on track. I like to wear shoes that lead me to inner peace and to peace with other people.

I like to cover myself with the shield of faith so that I can resist, refute, and repel the troubling thoughts, desires, and emotions that attack my heart and mind. I put on the helmet of salvation by letting the risen Jesus lead me from within.

I use the Bible like a sword to defeat my inner enemies. I pray in the Spirit throughout the day by speaking in languages that the Holy Spirit powerfully releases from deep within me.

The Bible tells me to “Put on the full armor of God.” That’s the outfit I wear over and over again. For more google: Ephesians 6:10-18.

How’s your spiritual hydration? Are God’s rivers of living water ever flowing from deep within you like a glorious fountain? If you aren’t as close to Jesus as you used to be, now is the time to return wholeheartedly to your first love for Him.

A key to inner peace in troubling times is to look for people to encourage. (They shouldn’t be difficult to find.) Be a person who sincerely speaks “many words of encouragement” to people. When you face resistance refuse to be discouraged. Continue to cultivate a sense of caring heart-to-heart community with people. Help people experience, hold on to, and lavishly spread faith, hope, and love. Give encouragement and it will be given to you as rivers of living water flowing from your innermost being. (Based on Acts 20:1-6.)

The rainbow has become a symbol of the far left and the term Christian identified with the hard right, but both belong to a much higher purpose — the work of God as presented in the Bible. Go beyond the left or the right. Experience “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Any society that produces multitudes of stressed out, anxious, angry, addicted, discouraged, or depressed people is bad for your mental health. Avoid listening to its messages. Instead find people who are filled with hope, joy, and inner peace and focus on the positive messages they are listening to.

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The Concept That Life Is More Than Physical Continually Revitalizes My Mental Health

Daily writing promptHow important is spirituality in your life?View all responses

I find the idea that the physical world is all that there is to be quite disconcerting. Without spirituality I don’t see any hope for me or for humanity in general. Without a vision beyond the material a human life is just a highly complex machine that ends in annihilation — nothing more; nothing less — purposeless and meaningless.

I encountered and opened my heart to Jesus-centered spirituality when I was a freshman in college, and it began to immediately revolutionize my thinking, my perception, and my life. Cultivating and developing an ever-growing relationship with the risen Jesus continually fills me with hope, peace, and faith, regardless of my outward circumstances. I totally recommend it to everyone! How many stars do I rate Jesus-centered spirituality? Go to a totally dark place deep in the country and look at the heavens.

When God is set aside the following things happen to a person. This is based on Psalm 10 and on my observation of American culture.

When there’s no room for God in people’s thoughts, they begin to pridefully think: “I can run my own life, keep myself happy, and stay out of trouble,” “What I’m thinking and doing is hidden from God,” and “I’ll never have to answer to anybody for my thoughts, words, and actions.” Those people renounce God, embrace self-focus, and boast about cravings and compulsions.

If you will make room for God in your thoughts, open your heart to Him, and start to listen to and obey His still small voice, He will begin to direct you from within by His presence, and lead you to love, joy, peace, and all the rest of the fruit of His Spirit. Dare to prepare the way for God to continually work inside of you. Then you will inwardly begin to soar like an eagle.

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