Steve Simms's Blog, page 61

Decades of Rare Quote Collecting

Daily writing promptDescribe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.View all responses

I’ve always loved uplifting quotations, inspiring words that touch my heart and strengthen me from within. However, I’ve never been satisfied with traditional books of quote collections so one day I embarked on a DIY quote search.

As an avid reader (often a hundred or more rare books about personal and spiritual growth a year) I began to underline the many words that deeply moved me. Then I would hand write those quotations in blank journal books. I did this for about thirty years and now I have 36 books overflowing with rare hand copied words that have changed my life.

About 6 years ago I stopped copying quotes in books and instead began to write my own uplifting quotes. Every morning, I wake up with original inspiring thoughts developing in my mind and heart. I get up and post them on social media, one after another until they stop. Then I copy and paste them one at a time on WordPress and pull them together as a blog post. (Occasionally I will still write a blog post the traditional way, but most of the posts that I write now are assembled by piecing together individual sentences and poems that I have written and posted elsewhere the first thing in the morning.)

Here are my most recent morning sentences and poems:

A closed heart is unwilling to be led by God’s Spirit. The more you ignore your conscience the more your life becomes contorted. When God asks us to surrender something on His altar (that we want to hold on to) we too often have an altercation with Him. It’s time for Christians to seek first the kingdom (inner invisible government/Lordship) of God, not to put their hope in human politics.

We live in a time
Where people define
Themselves by their desires
Not by what God requires.
But what I desire
Is not who I am.
I am who “I AM”
Says that I am.

I try to ban the word “proud” from my vocabulary.

Daily writing promptIf you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?View all responses

There’s a widely used word that bothers me. People frequently say, “I’m proud of . . .” or “Be proud of . . .” or “I’m a proud . . .” I try to ban the word “proud” from my vocabulary because Scripture warns against pride:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble,” “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up,” “Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position.”“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”“Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.”

Instead of telling someone, “I’m proud of you,” I say, “I’m blessed by what you did.” Instead of telling someone, “You should be proud of yourself,” I say, “You are so blessed that you were able to do that.” Instead of saying, “I’m a proud (whatever),” I say, “I’m blessed to be a (whatever).”

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The Challenge to Hear Jesus Talking

Daily writing promptWhat is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?View all responses

Life’s biggest challenge is to be willing to hear Jesus talking. He doesn’t say what I want Him to. What He does say hurts my pride–my facade that says that I’m doing alright running my own life. It’s so easy to just ignore Jesus and go my own way pretending to be okay. But I’ve come to realize, if I won’t hear and humbly respond to Jesus talking, I will make a never-ending mess of my life.

Forever Changed

Dead to the voice of the living God,
Controlled by self-focused desire,
Ruled by pride and disobedience,
Inwardly defeated by guilt,
Deserving of God’s punishment,
Avoiding His Holy presence,
Insensitive to His great love,
Unaware of Christ’s rich mercy,
One day I heard Jesus talking
And started walking
With Him!

At the start of each day
I hear Jesus talking.
Before I get on my way
I hear Jesus talking.
When my conscience speaks
I hear Jesus talking.
In valleys and on peaks
I hear Jesus talking.
As I listen and pray
I hear Jesus talking.
If I begin to stray
I hear Jesus talking.
When I open my heart
I hear Jesus talking.
When I need a new start
I hear Jesus talking.
As I read Bible verses
I hear Jesus talking.
In all of life’s reverses
I hear Jesus talking.

Listen. Deep inside your heart you can hear Jesus talking. I love listening to Jesus! He said that His sheep hear His voice. Do you?

When you spend time with people in a humble, Spirit-led environment, you can see their hurting heart and experience the living Jesus Christ together with them. If you listen, you will hear Him speaking.

If people attend a church that doesn’t listen to Jesus and talk about His Cross, about our sin, about repentance, and about Christ’s salvation, they’re usually seen as Christians, but if Christ-followers who daily listen to Jesus don’t attend an intuitional church they’re often seen as rebellious and out of line. Does that line of thinking make any sense?

The Bible says for Christians to assemble ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25), but that verse doesn’t say how we are supposed to do it. Here are 2 verses that tell us how to do it (along with the 50+ “one another” commands in the New Testament): Romans 8:14 and 1 Corinthains 14:26. Anybody can open a church but only the risen Jesus can build the members of His body together as living stones.

Churches are dependent on God, not vice versa. If Jesus isn’t actively talking in their midst, they are only a religious lecture center.

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Can Trump Protect God?

I dreamed that I was at a table eating with two other people. Donald Trump was also at the table, and we were trying to ignore him, but he kept interrupting us by saying mean and crude things. When I woke up I heard that Trump was speaking that evening at the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention in Nashville (where I live). I was very sad that an international Christian organization would embrace a speaker who disrespects people and stirs up hostility the way he does.

At the convention Trump claimed that he is going to “protect God in the public spaces.” He told them that his criminal indictments are “arrows” he is taking for them. Then he stretched out his arms like he was on a cross. He was cheered throughout the speech. Those Christian broadcasters seem to have forgotten that there is only one Savior — Christ Himself!

Being Pharisees
Or the Taliban
Is not how Christians
Take the land.
They’re not called to
A political stand
But to show
Amazing love
Throughout the land.

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With Discipleship Your Ship Won’t Sink

Daily writing promptWhat advice would you give to your teenage self?View all responses

Halfhearted Christians become hardhearted, but Christ daily demonstrates His reality to the tenderhearted. Christ’s true disciples are living examples of people who have a heart that’s sensitive to, responsive to, and obedient to His presence and who continually surrender to be led by His Spirit, not by their own desires.

Sermons don’t equip people to be sold-out followers of the risen Jesus. Inner transformation does. Experiencing the risen Jesus will lead you to obedience. Hearing a religious talk about Him wont.

Disciples of Christ aren’t religious spectators contented to sit and hear religious talks about Him. They listen to the living Jesus speak in their heart and then do what He tells them to.

Because disciples of Christ are often led in ways that others are unwilling to go, they sometimes become churchless. Many of the strongest Christ-followers I know don’t regularly attend a traditional church. Jesus doesn’t want to give you a superficial religious makeover. He wants to take over your heart and your daily life.

Jesus tells His followers to, “Go and make disciples.” Before you can go and make disciples” you have to be one. Learn to daily demonstrate deep sensitivity to the presence of the risen Jesus so that others can see Him working in you and be inspired and empowered to connect heart-to-heart with Christ.

Biblical Christianity isn’t built on politics, nationalism, religious tradition, or church attendance. It’s built on direct personal revelation from God and ongoing surrender to the living, resurrected Jesus. The early Christians’ response to paganism wasn’t grasping for political power. It was showing Christ’s love to their enemies.

Unity in the body of Christ won’t happen in big meetings or by pastor’s trading pulpits for a week. It happens when Christ-followers begin to connect with Jesus and with each other heart-to-heart.

Religious activity
Without sensitivity
To the reality
Of Jesus
Is empty.

Church attendance
Without dependence
On the presence
Of the risen Christ
And obedience
To His Spirit
Makes an audience
Of religious
Spectators.

Church is looking
For an audience
For a sermon,
But Jesus is looking
For people who will
Let Him determine
Their future.

Let your heart be
Sensitive
So you can sense
Christ’s presence
And truly be
Appreciative
Of who He is.

You can pretend
But true transformation
Will only begin
If you let Jesus
Change you from within.

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The Typical Church Format Bores Me

Daily writing promptWhat bores you?View all responses

When church is canned
And over planned
Till it presents
God’s promised land
As dull and bland
It makes me bored.
I want to stand
And to shout out,
“Jesus is here,
Let’s all listen
To His inner voice
And make the choice
To do what He says!”

Every Christian
Is an instrument
God wants to play,
Not an audience member
To hide away.

To not do God’s Word
Is to build on sand.
The body of Christ
Is a marching band,
Not just a grandstand
For a preacher man.
Time for the kingdom
Of God is at hand.
Let God’s marching band
Now be Spirit-led
By Jesus the Head.

Church is like a bunch of silent musical instruments lined up in neat rows in a room as one man gives a talk about music theory. A marching band practices and learns to play their instruments together as one. They don’t just listen to a lecture and then think they’re done. Christians should gather to be God’s music, not to hear a religious talk about it.

Your heart’s an instrument for the Great Musician to play. If you’ll surrender it to Him, you’ll hear its glorious sounds.

Many Christians have never been trained how to let the risen Jesus play His glorious music on their heart. The body of Christ is God’s silenced orchestra and humanity desperately needs to hear it. The body of Christ isn’t silenced by persecution. It’s silenced by institutional religion.

Christians don’t need more sermons about Christ’s music. They need to learn to let Jesus play His symphony on their heart. If you keep your heart shut up in a case the Great Musician won’t be able to play it.

If you won’t let God play His music in your heart going to church won’t do you much good. Without God’s music being played within you, hearing preaching will be nothing but empty words.

Music isn’t made by lectures and Christians aren’t made by sermons. Let Jesus make His music in your heart so you can make His music with your friends.

When Christians gather, they’re all on stage. The risen Jesus wants to conduct them like an orchestra or a marching band. (1 Corinthians 14:26.) Let Christ play your emotions and make your mess His music.

Lord, make me an instrument for You to play Your music in and through me throughout the day. Let me be Your flute, blow Your Spirit through my heart. Let me be Your violin, bow Your tune on my soul. Let me be Your guitar, chord Your will in my life. Let me be Your drum, tap out Your rhythm for my daily steps. Let me be Your piano, play Your keys to my life.

To live how you want
Is to burry your head
In rebellion’s sand
And to ignore the fact
That the kingdom of God
Is closely at hand.
It matters how you act!

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Look and See The Drink That Touches Me

Daily writing promptWhat is your favorite drink?View all responses

Here’s my favorite drink: “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

Human promises fail
But the Jesus touch
Will always prevail!

The Jesus touch
Is need much!
Let your heart unfold
With the will of God
Till His Spirit flows
As sap in the vine
And grows you to be
His fruit-bearing tree.
Where love, joy and peace
Ever increase.

Christ’s inner touch
Can do so much
To heal
Your hurting heart
And thrill
You with His hope.

Let Jesus touch your heart
With light from His Presence
And fill you with His Essence
Until tender tears begin
Flowing with awe from within.

“God with us,”
“Christ in you,”
It’s time to live
Like this is true
So Christ can prune you
And do what He wants to
Both within and through you!

“O taste and see that I am God.”

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Is Your Life Built on a Rock Foundation or on a Sandcastle?

Life can be built on God’s Rock Foundation or on your sandcastle. Choose the Rock!

Continually listening for and consistently obeying the voice of the risen Jesus will establish your life on the foundation of the solid Rock of direct revelation from the living God. Keeping your heart open to devour and obey Scripture and to connect with Spirit-led Christ-followers who can help hold you accountable will protect you from the deception that tries to distract you and to destabilize your foundation.

When you hear
The Lion of Judah roar
In your conscience,
If you ignore
And refuse to obey
What He has to say
His voice will fade away
And your hardened heart
Will fall into
The quicksand
Of guilt and delay.

A culture where people are defined and dominated by their desires abandons conscience for corruption. Guard your heart. A relationship with the risen Jesus is 24/7/365, not just an hour on Sunday.

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My invisible shoes lead me to strength

Daily writing promptTell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.View all responses

I call my invisible shoes “Christ-Responders” (CR). “For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.” So says Ephesians 6:15 in the New Living Translation of the Bible.

Those supernatural shoes have taken me to the strength of surrender: To surrender to the risen Jesus Christ is to access His presence and power. To abandon your self-focused and confused will and fully embrace His perfect and loving will, is the position of eternal strength. To lay down self-will for Christ’s will and begin to be continually led by the Spirit is to align with the vigor of the kingdom of God.

Put on your Christ-Responders! Discover the amazing places they will take you.

Respond to Jesus.
Respond all day.
Respond to Jesus
Do more than pray.

Take time to ponder.
Stay filled with wonder.
Spend your entire day
As a Christ responder.

Surrender to Jesus.
You can’t live Christ’s way
If you won’t obey
What He has to say.

The more your Christ-responsivity
The more you will be aware
Of the Holy Spirit’s activity.

Stay always online with Jesus.
Let His notifications
Be your meditations.
Let Him bring life to your heart
And make doubt and fear depart.

Be a Christ-responder. Be aware of Jesus and respond to His inner promptings. It’s good to kindly let people hear what you know about Jesus, but it’s even better to let them see you respond to Him with humility and love. Church membership doesn’t make someone a part of the body of Christ. A life and heart surrendered to the risen Jesus does.

Jesus is living, present, and active in all of His true disciples through the person of the Holy Spirit — “Christ in you.” When Christians gather for worship and all begin to listen to the risen Jesus and then say and do whatever He tells them to, Jesus begins to personally direct the meeting through the people present. I love meetings where the Holy Spirit is given the freedom to freely move as He desires.

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I Received a Head and Heart Transplant

Daily writing promptShare one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.View all responses

The best gift I ever received was a head and heart transplant. Now I am no longer the head of my own life. A brand-new Head has my heart and I continually want to give my all to Him — the risen Jesus Christ.

Jesus doesn’t just want some space in our head; He wants to be the literal, full-time Head, Lord, and Director of our life every place we go. A mind that is truly set (fixed) on Jesus is continually aware of His presence and directed by Him day and night. That’s what it means to be “led by the Spirit” instead of by our own opinions, thoughts, feelings, and desires. (See Romans 8:14.)

Because Jesus is now present everywhere as the Holy Spirit, “Christ in you,” isn’t limited to any particular number of people. Jesus is ready to live in and be the Head of “whosoever will” set their mind and heart on Him.

If you want your life to head upwards let Jesus head it up. If Jesus isn’t allowed to personally direct your life (or a church service), He may be a figurehead but He’s not the literal Head of it.

It’s easy to keep the living Jesus from being the Head of and freely controlling a church service. Just keep everything tightly programmed and humanly controlled.

When the Holy Spirit moves people become aware of their sins. When people become aware of their sins, they begin to feel guilty about them and sense their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. People would rather be unaware of their sins. Therefore, it is common for many churches to do their best to keep the Holy Spirit shut down (what the Bible calls “quenched”) so that Jesus isn’t allowed to be the Head.

Always and everywhere welcome Jesus! The purpose of worship is to keep Jesus welcome.

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