Steve Simms's Blog, page 68
December 24, 2023
The living one behind the big winter holiday
View all responsesThe biggest influence in my life is the living one behind the big winter holiday. Who might that be? His name is Jesus.
Let the good news that has caused great joy and disrupted routine religion in the hearts and lives of radical Christ-followers for more than 2,000 years, release great, ongoing life-changing joy in and through you: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord!”
The Jesus holiday that celebrates the Creator being born as a human baby grabs the world’s attention for weeks, but the reality of Christ’s presence and power is mostly unnoticed. Too many people have forgotten or ignored the living One behind the big winter holiday.
That winter holiday, established to honor Christ’s birth, has mostly shoved Him aside and become a day of obligatory sentimentalism. Look at all the characters that have replaced Jesus as the focus of His birthday: Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, the Grinch, the Chipmunks, NFL players, family members, and even Elves. Then let the winter day called Christmas call your heart to continually welcome the risen Jesus Christ with wonder, warmth, and worship, to daily follow and obey His way, and to always surrender your will to His.
If you’re a believer and Christ is in you, observe what He’s doing in there. Notice and obey the thoughts He’s putting in your mind, the instructions He’s giving your conscience, and the fruit of the Spirit He working to cultivate and release in your heart. Let Him reign in your brain, guide your conscience, and make you whole in your soul. The true white Christmas happens when your sins that are like scarlet are forgiven and become white as snow. (See Isaiah 1:18.)
If the Nativity of Christ was bigger in our hearts than our nationality, we’d have peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Unfortunately, there seems to be no room in the Christmas holiday for the risen Jesus to personally lead and prompt people to pray, testify, and worship from their heart.
It’s time for Christ-followers
To rise up and say
And to demonstrate
Night and day
How empowering
And healing it is
To have Jesus
As present-day,
Moment-by-moment
Lord, Master,
Savior and Friend!
Find Him today
And let Christ
Always lead your way.
Christmas is a winter day,
But Christ is bright and warm.
He’s the calm in life’s storm.
Let Him shape and form
Your heart to His holy norm.
Christ the Lord
Is risen
On Christmas Day.
He left the tomb
Always empty,
Alive to stay,
So he can be born
In your heart today.
What’s the Jesus holiday
Really about?
Read John’s Gospel,
And find out!
December 23, 2023
Hollow Days Are Boring
Hollow days are seldom happy. They’re just purposeless. It takes more than holiday parties to give purpose and meaning to hollow days.
A hollow day friendly society creates much apathy. Too many people are living in a nonstop hollow daze. When people live hollow days, their face begins to look like a hollow daze.
If your life seems meaningless, perhaps you’re stuck in a hollow day season. Jesus can make your hollow days be merry and bright!
Hollow days are boring. Every time we take a hollow day we miss out on the fullness of Christ. Try to avoid the Xmas hollow daze.
Jesus can
Make you jolly
And set you free
From holiday day
Melancholy.
"Empty! Empty!
We feel no cheer.
That the reason
We drink our beer!"
Home is no place
For the hollow daze.
Instead, step out of your haze.
And fix your gaze
On things that raise
Hope in your heart
And fill you with praise
And gratitude for God.
I don't like to gripe
About all the Christmas hype
But I don't like for it to wipe
People's attention away
From the person identified
By the first syllable
And to replace Christ
With hollow days.[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." src="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-38445" />Photo by Stephanie Borkowski on Pexels.com
Where is Jesus now?
Christ-followers are called to live out and demonstrate the mystery of “Christ in you,” the glorious reality of “God with us.” We no longer have to await His arrival. Instead, we need to faithfully stir up the gift of His presence within us (and avoid quenching the Spirit) so that we can live in continuous revival — spiritual awakening that grows from glory to glory, daily changing us more and more into His image. By interacting with the risen Jesus moment-by-moment we live a Spirit-led life.
When I started attending church (around age 10) I couldn’t understand why the preacher always preached and acted like God was far away from us. It seemed like he thought that God was somewhere up in the distant sky. He talked about Jesus like He wasn’t in the room. Even as a child I wanted to tell the preacher: “God’s right here with us, can’t you see?”
Immanuel has been here on earth living and working in His true followers for 2,000 years. O for eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that will forever surrender to His presence and His will! Behold the Lamb of God here and now, in this very moment and in all the moments that follow!
A famous Christmas song calls for all the faithful, joyful, and triumphant to come and adore Jesus, but it’s hard to find anywhere where faithful, joyful, and triumphant people are actively pouring out ongoing adoration to Jesus. However, here’s a poem that can help you get started experiencing the reality of the risen Jesus in your life.
Download Bible bits
And let them run
In the background
Of your brain.
Treasure them
With your heart.
Let them create
And maintain
The peace of Christ
Within you.
December 22, 2023
Judging people’s character . . .
View all responsesAm I a good judge of character? You decide.
I saw character defined as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.” Character is what you really are deep inside. It’s what you would do if you were completely convinced that no one would ever find out about it.
Good character requires that you live well with persistent honesty, compassion, purity, and integrity in all your actions, thoughts, and desires. By that standard, no one truly has good character.
True character is consistently thinking, saying, and doing only what is morally right. As humans we want people to believe that we have good character, but our true character comes out in unguarded moments, such as when we’re angry, frustrated, hurt, rejected, stressed, depressed, drunk, or high. Your reputation is what people think you are like, but character is what you are really like in your deepest self. Good character requires a completely pure heart and the innocence of a guilt-free conscience, but who has those?
The Bible calls character “righteousness.” It clearly states that “There is no one righteous, not even one.” The reality is that all humans fall short of true character. No one is completely honest and moral in everything that they think, say, and do. No one!
If you care about the deepest and most hidden content of your character, there is a way to true character. The way isn’t self-help. Our hearts are too broken and corrupt to be healed and repaired by self-effort. We need a better way.
Someone has said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” His name is Jesus and He is the Creator who was born as a human being. He was tortured and executed to suffer the worst consequences of our corrupt character. He rose from the dead to live forever so that He can now live in and through whosoever will fully surrender to Him and day-by-day fill them with His perfect character. The Bible calls that “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Here’s how Jesus changed my life and came to live in me:
There was a moment
When Jesus first arrived,
When I truly believed
And actually received
His presence within me.
O the glory I perceived
When Christ came and retrieved
My heart from despair
So I can now breathe the air
Of the wind of His Spirit
And read His word and hear it.
Lifestyle Christianity isn’t boxed in by church attendance. It happens wherever you happen to be throughout the day! Lifestyle Christianity is based on observing and obeying what Jesus is saying and doing within you, not on watching a church service. It isn’t about being a member of a religious organization. It’s about letting the risen Jesus daily organize and direct your mind, your heart, and your actions.
Because the Creator became a man as Jesus, we no longer need a religious organization in order to connect with God. Christianity is a lifestyle of connecting heart-to-heart with Jesus and being led by His presence within you, not a religion. The lifestyle of continually hearing and obeying Jesus is an incredibly exciting adventure. If Christianity isn’t continually changing your outward lifestyle from deep within you, it’s falling far short of its intended impact. Open your heart and try it for real!
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If “War Is Hell,” It’s Demonic!
A famous general
Said: “War is hell.”
War is demonic.
It teaches hatred,
Trains people to kill,
Slaughters sons and daughters,
Spreads waves of death
And devastation,
Yet is glorified
And memorialized
By human beings
Around the world.
Its monuments proudly stand
In almost every country.
Can people be that cutthroat
Without following demons?
Can you think of anything
Human beings do
That’s crueler than war?
Where are the monuments?
About loving your enemies?
When my happiest moments become consistent
View all responsesWhen my happiest momentsBecome consistent
And fleeting joys
Come to stay
And to no longer
Quickly vanish away
But remain with me
Throughout the day,
I have to say
I'm truly happy.
Obeying Jesus
Is how happiness
Came my way.
I'm happiest
When I'm guilt-free
And forgiven.
I love to celebrate
The glorious liberty
Of Christ's living water
Freely flowing
In and through me.
If you don’t find the Good News about Jesus Christ to be too good not to celebrate throughout the day and night, perhaps you’ve never really heard it. The voice of Christianity isn’t a Sunday sermon. It’s the risen Jesus speaking inside a human heart. (John 10:27.)
The voice of bold, consistent, and courageous rebellion against the sin that seeks to seduce and subdue us from within and without is seldom heard much in church. To hear the voice of radical Christianity listen to “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Every Christian is called to be a Jesus influencer — to tell people about and demonstrate the presence, power, and love of Christ.
I’m happiest when I’m focused on and surrendered to the living Jesus Christ. He keeps the joy flowing from within me.
December 20, 2023
I hosted a testimony party on Zoom.
View all responsesGood news? Yes! Christianity today needs Good News About Jesus Testimony Parties!
The daily, ongoing good news about Jesus is too often silenced. Even in countries where Christians are free to testify about what Jesus is now doing in and through them, Christ-followers have been trained to listen to lectures about Jesus, but not trained to show and tell everywhere what Jesus is doing and has done in their heart and life.
Jesus isn’t just good news! He is today’s news, breaking news, current news, ongoing news! Jesus is news now because He is always living, present, and working in the world. However, today’s news about Jesus is frequently ignored and even censored by our fear of being transparent.
The earliest Christians boldly broadcast current news about Jesus everywhere they went. (See Revelation 12:11.) They testified not only about what Jesus had done during His physical lifetime, death, and resurrection. They also testified about what the risen, present Jesus was doing right now in and through their life.
Let me zoom into the present. Two days ago, I hosted what I called a “Christmas Jesus Testimony Party” on Zoom and invited many of my Facebook friends. I asked if people would share a testimony about how Jesus has worked or is working in their lives. Wow! We all heard some amazingly good news!
We heard the good news about how six months ago one man’s hard heart was suddenly filled with compassion when Jesus became real to him. Both he and his wife said that he is no longer the same man.
We heard the good news how a woman who has struggled with mental health issues opened her life to Jesus and began to write about her experiences with Him and come out of her shell.
We were told the good news about a young man who thought that church attendance made him a Christian, until one Sunday morning Jesus spoke these words in his heart: “If you were born a Hindu, what would you be today?” He answered that he would have been a Hindu. Immediately, Jesus responded by asking him: “Why do you think you’re a Christian?” Suddenly he realized that he wasn’t a Christian at all but only a church attendee. He asked God to show him the truth and two years later he had a life-changing encounter with Jesus.
We heard the good news about a man who was raised in a Hindu family but struggled with hopelessness until he met a group of Christ-followers who told him the good news about the living Jesus and demonstrated Christ’s presence to him by loving him unconditionally.
We received the good news about a woman who had experienced Jesus as a child but had strayed away and lived a double, compromised life for several years. Then Jesus did some amazing things to bring her to total commitment to him. As Jesus was turning her heart back to him, he spoke to her in a clear voice: “You’ll never know all that I have protected you from.” When she heard Christ’s voice she sobbed and sobbed and has passionately pursued His presence ever since.
We heard a man share how he grew up in church and learned a lot about Jesus but how it was mostly just religious information. However, little by little, as he read about Jesus and spent time with people who openly loved Jesus, he noticed that Jesus was making Himself more and more real to him.
We heard a woman tell how she longed to know Jesus better and went from denomination to denomination (joining churches and getting baptized by different ones) but was always wanting Jesus to be more real to her. Then she started hanging out with some Christ-followers who met in a small group and openly talked about how Jesus was working in their lives. Seeing the living Jesus in and through those people began to fill her with Christ’s presence and joy which radiated from her face as she talked about Him.
Have you been to a Good News About Jesus Testimony Party? I plan to host more of them on Zoom after Christmas. (Hope you can come.) You can also host your own. Simply get a few people together (in person or online) and create a kind friendly environment where they feel safe to open their heart. Then allow whoever wants to share the good news about how they have experienced Jesus. (It helps to set a timer and a time limit for each person so that no one person takes up other people’s time.)
Christianity is about having a close, day-by-day relationship with the risen Jesus Christ. You too can get to know the risen Jesus as your friend.
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Inspired by Isaiah 11:1-9
Remember the future
Comes day-by-day
Until one day
It doesn’t.
Refuse to delay
And stray away
From God’s hope
Into spiritual decay
And downhearted dismay.
Focus on what
The risen King Jesus
Has to say.
Daily follow and obey
His living Way
Of being always
Led by His Spirit.
Let His life sprout
And grow as a branch
Full of the Spirit’s fruit,
Rising from the wasteland
Within you,
Let the Spirit of Christ’s
Counsel and might
Ever empower you
And His presence
Make you new!
Refuse to breath the bad air
Of hopelessness and despair.
You were born to make
The world a better place,
Not to be flushed
Down the drain
By all the pain
In the world.
Let God rearrange
Your heart and mind
And make you
The healing change
That hurting people
Are desperate to find.
Insults and put downs
Don’t disappear
Without a trace.
They displace
Inner peace
And leave lasting pain
Every place
They go.
Only forgiveness
Can erase
Their ugly stain.
We should never talk about Jesus like He’s not in the room. Wherever we go, there He is!
Jesus loves me this I know for He daily tells me so (and the Bible does, too)! When Jesus calls you to do something, you don’t need the approval or support of a church. Just do what He says!
It’s time for all Christ-followers to be trailblazing pioneers who prepare the way of the Lord, day and night! The risen Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life all year long all the years of our life! Every act of kindness makes the world a better place.
December 18, 2023
the man . . .
View all responsesA tortured man who had his back ripped to shreds and was repeatedly punched in the face was forced to wear a royal purple robe. Then he was brought in front of a crowd of angry people, with his bloody head wrapped in a thorn-filled vine. The governor said, “Behold the man,” and declared him not guilty. But the crowd disagreed and clamored for his execution. Reluctantly the governor went along with the crowd.
That humble, broken man, overflowing with love and mercy, changed my life even though he had been executed almost 2,000 years before my birth. How is that possible? I can’t explain it. All I know is that I heard a young man say that that man is alive today and tell how Jesus had changed his life. As the young man testified about Jesus (the Creator of the Universe in human flesh) something I don’t understand happened instantly inside my heart. I suddenly was aware of the presence of the resurrected Jesus Christ and He has been the most real person in my life ever since then.
Here’s an example of how Jesus continues to work in my life. I woke up very early this morning with this poem about Jesus being the Way, forming in my heart and mind. Later I went to a blog I read every morning, and the title of today’s post is The Way.
The way to make
The world a better place
Is to prepare the way
In your heart
For the Lord
To have more space
To do His will
In and through you.
The best ointment
To heal the pain of
Disappointment
Is a heart-to-heart
Appointment with God.
He always has
Time for you.
Spend your time
Always opening
Your heart to Him.
If you will replace
Hate with forgiveness,
The world will be
A better place
And much pain and heaviness
Will depart
From your heart.
I’m amazed how often God confirms things by putting them on the hearts of people who don’t even know each other. It’s time for all Christ-followers to be trailblazing pioneers and to prepare the way of the Lord! The risen Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life all year long all the years of our life!
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Look again at how you picture life
View all responsesYears ago, I pictured my life as being a Jesus Freak and giving my all to follow and obey Him. I can say that I’ve experienced far more of the miracles and joy of Jesus than I could have ever imagined. (Jesus is the ultimate life enhancer!) I hope younger people radically encounter and obey the living Jesus. I don’t want to be the last Jesus Freak.
Once there were millions of people so openly excited about Christ that they were called Jesus Freaks. You saw them everywhere: in stores, in parks, at sporting events, in colleges, on the streets, in high schools. Over the years their numbers have dwindled. Many were toned down by churches. Others turned away from Jesus. Some have already been promoted to glory. But there are still a few of us around praising and following Jesus everyday with all of our heart! O Lord, please renew our numbers in the generations behind us! Raise up millions of Christ-followers who will let the Holy Spirit empower them to get and keep the trash out of their heart and life.
Look again!
Do you recall
The most famous
Birth of all?
Jesus the living God
Was born in human flesh.
Now He reigns as Lord of all!
Hear and obey His call
Throughout the day.
You’ll no longer find Him
As a babe in a manger,
But if you’ll look
With the eyes of your heart,
You can see Him living and working
In someone you consider to be a stranger.
Let the people of God assemble heart-to-heart,
In the life-changing, radical love of Jesus
As His Spirit-led ekklesia,
Not in routine religion.
Break out of
Religious routine.
Look and experience
The unseen Jesus.
Taste and see
What can’t be seen
With the human eye.
Open your heart to receive,
And to ever perceive
The reality
Of the risen Christ.
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