Steve Simms's Blog, page 63

The right to kindly disagree

People have a right

To pretend to be

What they want to be

Or feel like they are,

But I have the right

To kindly disagree

With their subjectivity

And to agree

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Candy is dandy but spirituality is reality

Daily writing promptWhat’s your favorite candy?View all responses

There’s an inner longing in the human heart (an identity crises) that nothing in the physical world can fulfill. Candy (in all of its forms) appears to be dandy but it usually leaves us feeling empty and often guilty. Culture’s candy can’t create the life you crave.

Is there anything that can heal and satisfy hurting human hearts? Yes! True spirituality (an intimate, personal, self-surrendered relationship with the living God) is the key, and the risen Jesus is the way to that relationship.

If you say you believe in God, but ignore Him in your daily life, your belief may be superficial. It’s too easy to settle for and be satisfied with superficial Christianity.

It’s easy to say you believe in God, but seeking the Lord is costly. It requires that we set aside our personal desires to follow His will — that we replace our ways and our thoughts with His ways and His thoughts.

Our identity isn’t found in own thoughts, feelings, and desires. It’s found in God. When our desire for God distracts us from our personal desires, we begin to seek God and we discover His forgiveness, restoration, mercy, grace, and redeeming embrace through the sacrifice of the risen Jesus Christ. Then by God’s Spirit working within us (and within His Spirit-led community of fellow Christ-seekers), He begins to empower us and align us day-by-day with who He created us to be.

To be unaware that God is calling you closer to Him is to be spiritually blind. Open our spiritual eyes Lord so we can see You, surrender to You, and respond to You day and night.

Look beyond the darkness and the distractions! Truly, deeply, humbly, completely, continually: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

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How I take a break from sadness and despair

Daily writing promptDo you need a break? From what?View all responses

Who doesn’t need a break from the misery, anger, and hopelessness we see all around us? Too often our attempts to ignore it only show us the emptiness within us. What can we do?

Here’s how I break with sadness and despair and leave it behind. I go to the proven source of hope that has worked to empower people and fill them with inner peace for two thousand years. Yes. I turn to the risen Jesus Christ.

Feeling empty? Your heart is designed for God’s presence. Substitutes will never fully fulfill it.

Endowed With Splendor

Stir up your awareness
Of Christ in you.
Focus your attentiveness
On His living presence.
Keep Him always
In your consciousness
So that all that you
Think, say, and do
Will be led by His Spirit
Overflowing from within you
As rivers of rushing water
Empowered by His liveliness.

Don’t encase Christ
In a legal case
Or a religious place.
Behold His face
Everyplace.

You can daily experience the wonderful presence of the risen Jesus. Let Him keep your heart always overflowing with the splendor of His presence! See more of Jesus. “We look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen.” Enjoy Jesus! Let Him fill you with His glorious presence. Celebrate Christ! Praise, worship, and adore Him.

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The internet intertwines humanity (for better or for worse)

Daily writing promptThe most important invention in your lifetime is…View all responses

The internet gives people instant access to more information (and misinformation) than they have ever been able to access in human history. For better or for worse, the internet accumulates all that the Bible calls “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” at a person’s fingertips. A human lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to list all the ways that the internet is being used for evil and for good.

I do everything I can to avoid and wholeheartedly reject online confusion, hatred, deception, bullying, lies, rebellion, meaningless distraction, and all other destructive forms of information and temptation. I refuse to be seduced, possessed, and controlled by the evil on the internet.

I chose to go online to search for, represent, and proclaim “the tree of life.” Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I have found many things online that help me love Jesus more. My google records would show you the pages where I have discovered hope, peace, faith, and encouragement that lead to life in and through Christ. As I search, I’m quick to avoid the traps of evil and deception that abound.

I also love to proclaim the reality and presence of the risen Jesus. The internet is a powerful platform for doing that. It’s one way I “shout it from the housetops” that Jesus is real, alive, present, and working to set people free in the world today. Thank you for reading my blog. Also, look me up on xtwitter @CSteveSimms, on my Facebook page, and on my “Steve Simms” amazon author page.

Search for and proclaim light, not darkness.

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My ideal alignment for a wonderful day (in 88 words)

Daily writing promptDescribe your most ideal day from beginning to end.View all responses

From beginning to end, I’ve found that the ideal alignment for a wonderful day is to moment-by-moment focus on the presence of the risen Jesus, continually listen to and obey His voice, and fully surrender to His will. I’ve yet to live such an ideal day, but day-by-day throughout the years I inch a bit closer to such alignment. The more I lay down my will and embrace the will of the risen Jesus, the more His joy and peace flow from my heart.

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Joyful Influences

Daily writing promptHow do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?View all responses

My most significant life events over the passage of time have been moments of surprise insight. Frequently words come to me unexpectedly and suddenly I see things differently.

Because I was a church attendee, I thought I was a Christian. Then one day these words came to my mind: “If you were born a Hindu, what would you be today?” In an instant my perspective on life changed and I knew I was a Christian in name only, but not in reality.

A couple of years later I heard heart-felt words from two strangers about how the risen Jesus had revealed Himself to them, set them free, and filled them with peace and joy. As they were speaking, the same thing happened inside of me, and I’ve been rejoicing with and celebrating the living Jesus ever since.

Once when I was reading the book of Acts in the Bible, I was amazed how many times it said that God spoke to people. I said to God: “You spoke to people in the Bible, why aren’t you speaking to people today?” Immediately these words came to me: “The problem isn’t that I’m not speaking. It’s that you’re not listening.” So, I began to regularly notice the thoughts that come to my mind, and I discovered that many of them are from God and when I humbly receive and accept them, they powerfully change my perspective on life.

In the early hours of this very morning as I lay on my bed, I searched my heart and was silent. Then words began to come to me about the Light of God and once again they aligned with the next morning’s Wake-Up Call blog post. I love to let God shine the Light of His face in my heart.

“Until Christ-followers begin to daily delight in God’s Light we’ll stay stuck in routine religion. Overcomers overcome through ongoing revelation of ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ Behold Jesus and overcome!”

“The Light to look unto Jesus doesn’t come from religious lectures or ceremonies. It’s a gift of supernatural insight from God. Jesus is building His body on the solid rock of direct divine revelation not on the shifting sand of religiosity.”

“Jesus isn’t about building religious-lecture buildings. He’s about building people’s hearts together as the family of God. Jesus builds people’s hearts together when they open their eyes to see Him spiritually. When you see the risen Christ who I see, we become spiritual family.”

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To Do Today: Fully Surrender to The Prince of Peace

Daily writing promptSomething on your “to-do list” that never gets done.View all responses

It’s there every day at the top of my to do list: Fully surrender to and obey The Prince of Peace. It’s my whole-hearted intent and my greatest desire, but try as I may, I never accomplish it. There’s always some pride, self-will, and rebellion lurking around in me. They try to drown out my conscience and distract me from ongoing awareness of the presence and voice of “Christ in me, the hope of glory.”

The sound of His voice keeps my hope strong. I don’t trust in myself and my in my ability to follow and obey Him. As I keep my hope in Jesus, His love, forgiveness, and mercy keep working in me to bring healing and recovery. My soul cries out: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Bit-by-bit and day-by-day He changes me as I gradually learn to let Him have His way in my thoughts, actions, feelings, and desires.

Discipleship is a life-long process. We can encounter the living Jesus in a single moment and begin a heart-to-heart relationship with Him. However, it takes a lifetime of voluntary surrender, obedience, and dying to self in order to grow from glory to glory and experience the depths of His love and grace for us.

The more I surrender to the Prince of Peace the more I see things differently — the more my heart hurts for both sides in disagreements, conflicts, and wars. Events in Israel and Palestine demonstrate that our crazy world needs to see Jesus-sanity, not religious vanity.

Where is the Middle in the Middle East?

My heart longs for the Middle
In the Middle East.
When will the hate
And violence cease?
We pray for the peace
Of Jerusalem
But we need to release
Our pride
That’s blinds us
To the cruelty
Of those we think
Are on God’s side.

Abraham’s children,
Muslims and Jews,
Have radically different views.
But that doesn’t excuse
The way we use
The Bible
To depart from love
And abandon the Heavenly Dove.

God sent the Prince of Peace
Who lived in the Middle East
And now many people say
That He’s no longer dead,
But they too often ignore
What He said:
“Love your enemies.”

Gaza

Although I didn’t
Want it to,
This poem developed
In my mind
During the night,
So I’m binging it
To the light.

Mass murders hid
With hostages amid
Crowded civilians.
Now avengers
Are battering
Homes and buildings
Thus shattering,
And scattering
Thousands of bodies
Of innocent children,
Mothers, and fathers,
Ignoring the fact that
Their lives amount
To so much more
Than kill count.

War’s man-made mayhem

Makes much misery.

Bombs fall bam, bam, bam

With horrid cruelty.

It’s time to fully surrender

To the Prince of Peace!

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Creative Cooking and New Wineskins

Daily writing promptWhat’s your favorite thing to cook?View all responses

My favorite thing to cook is my own creation that I call a veggie-packed pizza. I dice up various vegetables and stack them on a plate. Then I cook them several minutes in the microwave. When they are soft, I mix in cheese (or veggie cheese) and continue to heat them until the cheese melts into a gooey mess.

Then I spread the veggie-goo on a frozen thin-crust cheese pizza and stack it about a quarter of an inch high. Finally, I bake it at the recommended temperature until the crust is nice and crispy and then enjoy.

Another thing I greatly enjoy is new wine. Not the liquid kind, but the spiritual kind. Jesus said that the new wine (a symbol of the Holy Spirit) needs new wineskins. I’ve often thought of the new wineskins as being new ways of doing church, however, a different perspective recently came to me.

The new wineskins are part of the kingdom of God, the invisible government of a human heart by God (that Jesus told us to make our first priority). Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you and that it comes without observation. Therefore, it’s invisible so it can’t be a religious organization or a church format.

I sense that the new wineskins are open, heart-to-heart, Spirit-led relationships and interactions that people have with the risen Jesus and with other Christ-followers. I continually experience that those kinds of relationships flourish and abound with the exciting and powerful new wine of God’s Spirit. If we will listen to and obey the still small voice of the Holy Spirit (“Christ in you, the hope of glory,”), He will continually lead us to such beautiful relationships and encounters.

If we try to bring the new wine of the Holy Spirit into the old wine of religious organizations and programmed services, it irritates the people who have put their hope in systematized Christianity and disrupts their comfort zone. Then their resistance makes people who are trying to embrace the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit feel like they are out of order. Many people who want to be Spirit-led eventually give up, quench the Spirit, and conform to the pressure of the religious system. Thus, the new wine is spilled from their heart, and they settle for the old routine.

As humans we are loved with a love that infinitely surpasses self-love and a forgiveness that is vastly more effective than self-forgiveness. The risen Jesus, the Creator in human flesh, has revealed God’s love and offered His forgiveness to whosoever will humbly and freely receive it. Let God’s Spirit align your heart to continually perceive and surrender to “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Truly receiving God’s love keeps us so enthralled with His glorious presence that we forget about ourselves and keep our focus on Him.

It takes great courage to make room in your heart and in your life for the risen Jesus to do whatever He wants to. Be courageous! When God’s timing meets our patience and humility spiritual awakening springs forth. Wake up to awareness of the risen Jesus — to constant connection with the living Christ.

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Fast, finger-tip access

Daily writing promptWrite about your first computer.View all responses

My first computer gave me a tree of fast, finger-tip access to good and evil. A mouse-click or a key flick could instantly display wisdom or wickedness.

Wickedness? Yes! Yesterday, January 31, 2024, the CEOs of 5 of the largest social media companies testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee about online child exploitation.  The meeting was packed with family members who were lifting up photos of their children and teenagers who had killed themselves as a result of online bullying or had died from overdoses of drugs they accessed through a social media platform.

Wisdom? Yes! Using my first computer I learned to search for wisdom and avoid wickedness. I learned that it was wise to be open, honest, and accountable to someone about my online surfing. I committed to tell my wife anytime I went to a page that promoted wickedness. Being open and accountable with her gave me the strength to avoid those pages. Instead, I began to search for quotations and sites about inspirational topics. I discovered much wholesomeness and inspiration with my first computer. The web is full of wisdom if we will choose to search for it instead of for wickedness.

I also began to use my first computer to blog about hope and to post it on social media — to spread kindness and wisdom in all of my online activity. It’s not easy. Sometimes people attack and insult me for my beliefs, but I strive to respond with compassion and to bless those who curse me.

People need encouragement, not negativity. They need wisdom, not more wickedness. They need the wisdom and love of the living, healing God, not the meaninglessness of purposelessness existence.

Here is how I used my latest computer to write and post some wisdom today. (You can find much more of my wisdom search on my Facebook page.)

The proud idea of
Self-sufficiency
Blinds our eyes
So we can’t see
The victory
Of “Christ in you,
The hope of glory.”

Even when you feel like nothing
You’re never nothing,
And there’s never nothing
That God can do.

Either extreme
Is off the balance beam.
You’re neither nothing
Nor self-sufficient.
You’re made in God’s image
And you desperately need
His presence and love.

Let Jesus fill you
With His fire
Of holy desire.
Even in the
Darkest night
He can ignite
You with His
Glorious Light!

I put my hope in people who are running after Jesus. I don’t trust those who are striving to get and hold on to political power.

The church-Jesus
Is stuck in a building
But the living Jesus
Is always revealing
His love and His healing
To whoever will open
Their heart to Him.

People need to grow
In a relationship
With the risen Jesus
And not be content
With the status quo.

I’m scared to interrupt a church service (like the Bible says to do)

Bloganuary writing promptWhat’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?View all responses

“If a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.” (1 Corinthians 14:30-31.) This is one of the most ignored Scriptures in the Bible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done in a church service. I’ve always been afraid to do it.

Many times, while I’ve been hearing a sermon in church, a revelation of insight has come to my mind. However, I’ve never had the courage to ask the preacher to stop and give me a turn to share what God put on my heart.

I think it would take an overwhelming move of God in my heart to get me to obey that Scripture verse. I’ve pictured it before. I would raise my hand until the preacher asked me what I wanted. Then I would tell him that God just showed me something and the Bible says that he should stop so I can share it. Then I pictured the preacher getting mad and the ushers asking me to leave. Do you know anyone who has obeyed that Bible verse? Would you obey it? (Quakers used to actually visit a church and then stand up in the middle of the message and begin to preach.)

Perhaps a meeting of the body of Christ should be a team of Christ-followers working together, not an audience passively watching a professional preacher work. It’s easy to get Christians to be a Sunday morning audience; hard to get them to work together as a Spirit-led team. Church is like a team (in whatever sport) that meets once a week to hear a talk from their coach but never plays a game.

True worship is when praise and adoration for Christ the risen King gushes forth from your heart to His. Abide intimately in Christ the Vine so that God’s incoming kingdom can bear much fruit in your heart and through your life. King Jesus woke me up this morning with this poem developing in my heart.

Jesus came to remove
Your alienation
From the presence of God
To make you a part of
His holy nation
And call you to follow
Christ the risen King
In every situation.
Make the kingdom of God
Your destination.
(1 Peter 2:9 / Matthew 6:33.)

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