Steve Simms's Blog, page 65

Thoughts About Jesus’ Words About Fasting

The Fast Track (Matthew 6:16-18)

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

I’ve fasted, sometimes regularly, more often occasionally, and sometimes rarely. When I fast, I usually want to just hurry through it.

I’ve discovered that it’s hard to have a happy face when I’m hungry from fasting and while I’m trying not to look like a somber hypocrite. It’s difficult not to try to be rewarded by letting other people know that I’m dodging food for God, so that they can give me some sympathy, admiration, or encouragement as the case may be.

For some reason grooming my hair and washing my face doesn’t feel like it’s going to hide the fact that I’m fasting. Still, I know that God knows that I am trying, and He has promised a reward. Maybe that reward is the humility and brokenness that fasting brings to my awareness. Perhaps that’s what King David meant when he wrote: “I humbled myself with fasting and my prayer was genuine.” (Psalm, 35:13.) Or what James meant when he wrote: “Humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up.” (James 4:10.)

One other thing. I’ve discovered that I don’t get to personally know Jesus better by hearing a weekly talk about him, but by honestly opening my heart to Him. Fasting helps me do that.

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Discipling and Undemonizing

The question isn’t, “Where do you go to church?” The question is, “Where and how are you being discipled by God’s Spirit?”

Discipling
Is about training
People’s inner hearing
So they can start following
And daily obeying
The actual prompting
Of the Holy Spirit.

Discipleship
Isn’t a sunny
Comfy cruse ship.
It’s a spiritual
Battleship
That has to
Overcome
Much hardship.

Words Inspired by Psalm 2:
Nations conspire
To fulfil their desire
To throw off the things
That God does require.
O Lord, please inspire
My heart to obey You
And Your inner fire
Of Christ in me,
The hope of glory,
Your Anointed One
The risen King of Kings,
And no longer follow
The ways of the nations.

We humans need to be undemonized. A man Jesus had undemonized asked Jesus if he could travel with Him, but Jesus sent the man back to his family and told the man to tell them what He had done for him. The man went and told people what Jesus had done, and they were amazed. (See Mark 5:18-20.) Almost 2,000 years later I heard some undemonized people tell how Jesus had set them free and I was instantly amazed and transformed from within.

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My Name is Steven Simms (And Like Stephen Crane, I’m Against War)

Bloganuary writing promptWrite about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc. View all responses

All my life I’ve been called by my middle name Steven (actually I’ve been called Steve). So, in my mind my first name is Steve and the name that proceeds it just confuses people.

This morning thinking about the Russian/Ukraine and Israeli/Hamas wars inspired me to write a poem about another Stephen:

Stephen Crane
Was an American soldier
Who took the time
To openly complain
About the insanity
Of the terrible pain
That he experienced
And saw in combat.
He wrote about that
In his famous novel
And powerful poems
That sound like funeral hymns
And expose the worldwide myth
That war’s cruel bloodshed
Is “The Red Badge of Courage,”
When the reality is
It leaves millions of people
Dying and dead.
Have you read
Stehpen’s works?

War’s Crime?
When children
And noncombatants
Are being killed
War’s crime
Is revealed.
Soldier’s deaths
Are glorified
As heroic
While responsibility
For children’s death
Is denied.

When I was a tiny child I would ask my parents, “Why is there war?” and it would make me cry. I still ask that question and sometimes it still makes me cry.

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Helping a church transition to ekklesia

Bloganuary writing promptWhat’s your dream job?View all responses

My dream job would be to help a church transition to ekklesia. That’s a transition that will work miracles! Ekklesia is the word that is used when Jesus says (in Matthew 16:18) what He will build: “I will build My ekklesia (the name of the participatory town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities).” 

I explain this concept and my experience with it in Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible — Ekklesia. Basically, ekklesia demonstrates that the risen Jesus is the present, living, and active Lord in a gathering of Christ-followers by allowing Him to directly lead and control the meeting.

When people who have surrendered themselves to follow and obey the living Jesus say, “Jesus is Lord!” they are saying that He is the ultimate authority. Throughout history that declaration backed up by a lifestyle of obeying Jesus has been seen as a dangerous threat by governments, armies, organizations, families, companies, churches, and other authorities.

It is very rare for a church (or any other organization) to actually let Jesus take full and direct control. Still, my dream job is to help a church switch from human leadership based on a chain of command to being actively led by the Spirit of Christ working in and through all the people present.

Jesus! That’s the name to honor! The name that needs to be on our hearts and minds is not the name of a preacher, a church, a politician, or a celebrity. It’s the name of Jesus!

Before you respond to words and situations start talking to Jesus. He’ll change your perspective!

A Good Leader Is a Self-Weeder

Bloganuary writing promptWhat makes a good leader?View all responses

Good leaders are self-weeders who continually pluck the weeds of pride and love-of-power from their mind and heart. Good leadership is so much more than holding an official position of power in a government, business, or institution. It’s about honesty and integrity and the desire to consistently do what is honorable and righteous. Thus, the best leadership is based on a leader’s passion to personally do and to humbly inspire other people to do what is right, not on the ability to manipulate, deceive, and control people.

Manipulative leaders try to rally people around themselves and their arrogance. Good leaders rally people around truth spoken and demonstrated through kindness, mercy, and humility. The best leaders lead people to strive to be the best human being they can be. They are God-inspired servant-leaders.

The key to God inspired leadership is to make room in your heart for unceasing, Spirit-led prayer. Jesus prayed to the Father: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’

As I lay in bed this morning the following thoughts about the kingdom of God began to develop inside me. (I’ve put them in quotes.) After posting them on my Facebook page, I came to today’s writing prompt.

“Government isn’t the world’s Savior. The risen Jesus is. The government of God works inside you. Continually listen to and obey His Spirit — “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Make it your first priority to be governed and led by God’s Spirit living and working in your heart, not by your feelings, desires, and opinions. You won’t find the kingdom of God in human governments or in institutions. Jesus said that it is within you.” (It goes beyond human leadership.)

The best leadership is Spirit-led leadership. Spiritual leadership isn’t about what happens in a religious building an hour or so per week. It’s about what happens in your mind and heart 24/7/365. Hearing a religious talk is a poor substitute for an ongoing heart-to-heart relationship with the risen Jesus. Good leadership humbly aligns with God.

The name that needs to be on our hearts and minds is not the name of a politician or a celebrity. It’s the name of Jesus!

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Un-Inventing Compartmentalization

Bloganuary writing promptIf you could un-invent something, what would it be? View all responses

I don’t like the compartmentalization of life into the secular and the sacred. That’s what I would un-invent. If God is real then every moment of our life belongs to Him, not just an hour on Sunday morning.

I don’t have a scheduled specific time and place for prayer. I’ve tried that numerous times, yet it always seemed forced and awkward to me.

In Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus is telling people not to do “righteous acts before men to be seen by them.” The righteous acts He mentions are giving to the needy, prayer, forgiving people, and fasting. Then He says “when you pray” do it in secret, not to be noticed by people. It’s interesting that in another place, the Bible says to “pray without ceasing,” so it is important for Christ-followers to learn to pray everywhere and all the time.

The first few years after I was born again, I tried at various times to start a regular prayer routine at a specific time and place. I would kneel and began to talk to Jesus. However, after a few minutes I would find myself repeating the same prayers. My mind would get sleepy and dazed, yet I would force myself to “babble on like pagans,” thinking that the longer I prayed and the more words I said, the more likely I would be heard.

I finally gave up on having a specific prayer routine. Now I talk to Jesus and listen to Him throughout the day and night enjoying His presence. He’s my best friend! My favorite time is when I wake up. I lay in bed sensing the presence of Jesus. I listen to Him and converse with Him. Then I get up and share what I’ve heard on social media.

When people or situations come to my mind or someone tells me about a prayer request or need, at that moment, I ask Jesus to intervene and to have His will in that situation. Often my wife and I will pray out loud together in agreeing prayer several times a day. When we got married, we agreed to pray together every night when we went to bed. If we are apart, we pray by phone or another device.

When I talk with people on the phone, I frequently pray with them and for them. Often, they pray for me as well. My wife and I love to pray with other people both on the phone and in person. Either way, we open our heart to God and to whoever we are praying with or for.

As I lay in bed this morning, listening to Jesus, this is what formed in my heart:

If your relationship
With the risen Jesus
Is nonexistent,
Distant,
Or preacher dependent,
There is good news.
You can have a radiant,
Heart-to-heart,
Ongoing and intimate
Relationship with Him.
There’s no requirement
To settle for less.

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3 Sources of Supernatural Love and Support

Bloganuary writing promptCan you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?View all responses

I have 3 positive examples of where I feel loved. I call them 3 sources of supernatural support. They help me create space for deep, heart-felt love.

Christ in me: I feel love when I let myself be aware of Jesus Christ living inside of me through the Holy Spirit (what the Bible calls “Christ in you, the hope of glory,”). I love being one of Christ’s sheep and being aware of His voice lovingly leading and directing me from within. The more I lay down my rebellion and surrender my life and my will to His, the more I’m able to receive the healing comfort of His love for me. Christ in the Bible: I feel love when Jesus reveals Himself to me as I read the collected writings of His first followers and of the ancient prophets, called the Bible. When I read it with an open honest heart the words touch me deeply like a cherished love letter. Christ in heart connection: I feel love when Jesus demonstrates His presence, compassion, and power through His everyday followers’ words and actions. When ordinary people humbly open their heart to one another and to the risen Jesus, His love begins to freely flow, and the reality of His presence fills the atmosphere. (The Bible calls this the Greek word ekklesia which means the called-out ones. It was the name of the participatory town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities where anyone present could speak.)

If you let Christ live in you, He will lead and direct you from within if you will focus on His presence and obey His promptings. Receiving more of Christ’s love will produce more prayer — more heart-to-heart connection with Him.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit don’t take over your free will. If you don’t cooperate with the Spirit’s leading, His gifts won’t flow through you. If you will cooperate with the living Jesus in those three areas, you will begin to feel His love and to demonstrate His love to others.

The Awareness That Declutters My Life

Bloganuary writing promptWhere can you reduce clutter in your life?View all responses

To be aware that God knows me and knows all about me, yet still loves me, means that I no longer have any reason to clutter my life in an attempt to hide from and avoid Him like Adam and Eve did in the Garden. I can fully open my heart and continually surrender my life to Him and trust that Christ will live in me and change me from glory to glory as I let Him lead me moment-by-moment by His Spirit. I can have ongoing access to the gifts of the Spirit and daily demonstrate the presence of the risen Jesus so that other people can be dumbstruck and stand in awe of His demonstrated reality.

God has given supernatural spiritual gifts to the members of the body of Christ so they can flow with those gifts and demonstrate the presence, power, and compassion of the living Jesus to one another, to nonbelievers, and to the world. When individual Christians neglect, quench, or deny the gifts of the Spirit (because of unawareness, fear, or unbelief) we deny ourselves and others the amazing access to God and His abilities, that those gifts reveal. It’s vital that you let God’s Spirit declutter you from within so that He can freely release His spiritual gifts in and through you.

The Holy Spirit
Isn’t just for you.
He wants to live in you
So He can reach
Other people too.
Open your heart
So they can see
The light of Christ
Living in you.
Let His compassion
And spiritual gifts
Come flowing through
To make them aware
Of the glorious things
That only Jesus can do.

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You can choose what you allow in your mind!

You don’t have to allow
A thought in your mind.
You can disavow
And resist it.

You have the keyboard to your mind. No one else can manage your thoughts. If you won’t do it, it won’t get done.

People like to ask why God allows bad things to happen. Perhaps a better question is, why do people do bad things.

If you allow yourself to behave, speak, and think in ways that produce guilt, you’ll experience guilt (even if you hide it). God wants to forgive us, but we too often allow our human pride and self-justification to deny and reject His mercy.

Be careful! There’s a ton of dumb stuff on a smart phone! There’s nothing artificial about your conscience. It’s God’s gift of supernatural intelligence. Allow it to lead you to His forgiveness and you will experience freedom from guilt.

When Jesus starts to work in your heart click allow. The more you allow Jesus to daily lead you, the greater your faith in Him grows. To open your heart to the risen Jesus is to begin to experience many supernatural things.

Time is ticking away.

Before it expires

Learn to live the life

That God supernaturally

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MLK was a 20th century man who confronted injustice with the bold dove of peace.

Bold Christian Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. (For MLK Day)

Bloganuary writing promptWhat is your favorite animal?View all responses

My favorite animal is the dove, because it is the symbol of the power of inner peace. Our world desperately needs peace. We humans need peace with each other, peace in our own heart, and peace with God. God’s inner presence as the Holy Spirit is the key to all three needs.

Jesus is the world’s greatest example of a life empowered by peace. When He was baptized the Holy Spirit came on Him in the form of a dove. Near the end of His physical life, He told His disciples: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Jesus continues to give great inner peace to His followers to this very day. His peace is available to you!

During the great flood, Noah released a dove from the Ark hoping it would find dry land. It returned with an olive branch. God offers the olive branch of inner peace and the Heavenly Dove of His Spirit to whosoever is willing to humbly receive and be inwardly led by His presence.

All humans have sinned. No one has a completely accurate understand of who Jesus is and how He gives supernatural peace to people who are willing to receive it. However, some people demonstrate the peace of the risen Jesus Christ in amazing ways. I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of those people.

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