Steve Simms's Blog, page 89

Freedom quiz

Freedom quiz: How many of these life-traps are you free from?

Discouragement,Frustration,Anger,Guilt,Tormenting thoughts,Grumpiness,Unforgiveness,Bad habits,Addiction,Anxiety,Shame,Self-righteousness,Sexual obsession,Drug abuse,Hatred,Blame,Depression,Self-focus,Bad attitude,Worry,Unkindness,Name calling,Profanity,Drunkenness,Controlling desires,Overeating,Hostility,Verbally attacking people,Dishonesty,Stinginess,Rebellion,Pride,Deception,Hopelessness,Bitterness,Hardheartedness,Distressing feelings,Self-justification,Greed,Lust,Envy.[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-36699" />Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Jesus talks to me

If you have ever
Experienced the glory
Of the risen Jesus,
Tell the story.
If you’ve found His peace
Instead of worry
Tell the story.
Refuse to merely be
A repository
To safely store
Christ’s story.
Your revelatory
Experiences with Him
Need to be told.
Be articulatory
About what Jesus
Has done for you,
Tell the story!
If people are derogatory,
Be kind and keep on
Telling the story.

The silence of Christians about their personal encounters with the living Jesus causes people to think that Jesus is silent and inactive. To silence Christians when they gather for worship and make them little more than an audience shuts down their amazing stories of how God is working in and through them.

Jesus is talking directly to His people every day. However, because it’s rare for Christians to admit that they hear Him, it’s easy to believe that Christ is silent and His inner voice is only imagination.

Jesus frequently speaks to me with an inner voice deep inside me. It’s sometimes words, sometimes a sensation, sometimes a prompting, sometimes a flash of understanding and insight, sometimes an image, sometimes my conscience, sometimes a memory, sometimes a Scripture burning in my heart. I’ve even heard Him call me by name. The more I pay attention the stronger the voice of Jesus grows. If I resist, reject, or ignore His inner voice it fades away. When I listen and obey, amazing things happen. Listening to the voice of the living Jesus gives me incredible peace and powerful encounters with Him.

I’m so glad that Jesus said: “My sheep hear My voice,” and that He continually demonstrates those words to me. Listen carefully deep inside of you and you too can hear Jesus personally speak to you!

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Lessons from Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship and their early meetings

Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship was amazing! In its early days it met monthly, setting aside the Christian tradition of institutional identity and celebrated leaders. They gathered passionate Christ-followers from various backgrounds to meet in hotel conference rooms around the world in order to focus on the presence of the living Jesus.

In 1974 I had a traveling sales job and was able to attend Full Gospel Business Men’s meetings around the USA. They were marvelous. Christians gathered without caring about anyone’s church identity or the lack thereof. Their attention was on hearing from the risen Jesus, not just from prominent Christian leaders. They worshipped Jesus with goosebump-raising passion. People would excitedly testify about how Jesus had set them free and how He was presently working in them. Sometimes the whole room would sing in tongues together in supernatural unity and glorious harmony.

Strangers embraced each other with heart-felt love. People prayed out loud with and for one other. Miracles happened. Joy filled the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, as time went by the group became institutional and began to focus on organizational identity, human hierarchy, and celebrity leaders. Eventually it splintered into multiple organizations and faded into obscurity. Here are some lessons from their early days:

Revival ignites when Christians intentionally ignore institutional identities and instead focus on the risen Jesus.The Holy Spirit is capable of doing amazing things if we will get institutionalism out of His way.When Christ-followers gather without institutional identity and controlling hierarchy, Christ is free to carry the meeting.When you want Christ’s presence more than His presents, your spirit will soar!The Creator is the One who has the right to identify us. Self-identifying brings division not unity.Guilt isn’t removed by self-justification, denial, or medication. It’s removed by humble acknowledgement, honest confession, sincere repentance, and the undeserved forgiveness purchased by Christ on the Cross.[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-36678" />Photo by Jan Kopu0159iva on Pexels.com

3 random thoughts about life and meaning

To believe that God isn’t real, that there’s no Creator, is to believe that you (and everything else that is seen, felt, thought, or desired) is merely an accident.

Materialists say nothing is real but matter, but they ignore the reality that an atom, the smallest material thing, is almost exclusively empty space inside a ball of energy that masquerades as real.

Almost no one lives like they believe that their life is only a marvelous but meaningless mingling of atoms and electrons.

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Christians, let’s lose our snooze!

The time you use
To spiritually snooze
Will cause you to cruise
With culture currents
And gradually you’ll lose
Your desire to unite
With the armor
Of God’s light.

Self-focused desire gratification causes us to rely on human effort and our own perceptions rather than daily depending on and relying on the risen Jesus. We may acknowledge that Jesus exists, but we don’t believe in Him enough to continually surrender our life and our choices to His control. Our everyday life is self-driven rather than Jesus-driven and spiritual slumber keeps us from understanding and encountering the present time reality of the living Jesus.

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Fresh perspective on Revelation chapter one

By revelation John, one of Christ’s disciples exiled on an island for His reliance on the risen Jesus, saw “the seven golden lampstands” and Jesus gloriously standing in the midst of the seven lampstands while holding seven stars in his right hand. Then Jesus told John, “The seven stars are the angels (messengers/lights) of the seven churches (ekklesias/town hall meetings) and the seven lampstands are the seven churches (ekklesias/town hall meetings).

John was born and raised a Jew. When John states that Jesus was in the midst of “the seven golden lampstands,” I think John was describing the 7 branched menorah lamp that continually burned in the Jewish temple. Although the 7 branches are united and draw oil from the same source, they represent 7 (the fullness) of Christ’s ekklesias/town meetings. The seven stars are seven lights (7 messengers/angels that Jesus is holding in His right hand (submitted fully to His authority) that will fill the seven town hall meetings/ekklesias with His glorious light by shinning in the hearts of those present who will each one put the light of Jesus that is shining within them on the lampstand by speaking from the heart as prompted by the Spirit during Christ’s town hall meetings.

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The limits set by unconditional love

What is “unconditional” love? Although God disapproves of your poor choices that accumulate bad consequences and guilt, He always cares about you! To compassionately disapprove of someone’s harmful actions is to demonstrate true “unconditional” love. To approve of people’s bondage to self-focused desires, is not being loving.

God cares enough to explain to us the consequences of harmful choices and to warn us against making them. His love always includes His disapproval of destructive choices. Although He respects free will, He sets loving conditions (boundaries, laws, and government) to protect people from the chaos of our rebellious feelings, desires, and thoughts.

When we become deeply aware that God loves with enough love to allow us the freedom to reject Him and to cause Him extreme pain, our heart is touched. Our guilt becomes unbearable as true love for God rises up within us and causes us to want to respect and obey His commandments (His protective boundaries). Yet, although our efforts can establish outward compliance to God’s will, they alone cannot align our inner thoughts, desires, and feelings with God. Like Paul, we realize, “O wretched man that I am.” We understand that we need rescuing that goes far beyond self-effort and/or a one-time religious decision.

Then we can behold the amazing love of the Lamb of God and His redemptive sacrifice on the Cross. Then we can begin to experience truly unconditional love that empowers us to see and be set free from our desire to get off God’s track and dive into the muck of inner corruption. Then we can experience Christ’s ongoing presence within us to lovingly lead us by His Spirit and to be our hope of glory, not just in the afterlife, but in the present moment. When we take personal responsibility for the guilt we feel, we’ll be willing to ask for and receive forgiveness and healing.

When people sound a gong
And declare that wrong
Is now right
And if you don’t
Sing their song
And go along
With their behavior
They say you hate them,
Then society’s in for a long
Dark night.

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Living high on the hype plane

Hype hampers the perception of truth. Honesty is heroic. Hype is heads toward hypocrisy.

Following your own desires and feelings isn’t the hype it pretends to be. Hype tries to make fake feel fresh baked. “Hype-iness” isn’t happiness!

Hype is propaganda partying. It hates any truth that disrupts it. Hype is a horrid substitute for hope. When you’re “caught” up in the hype, you’re no longer free.

Hype makes people hyper. Truth makes them think. Hype addiction keeps the phone in sight, the TV on, and the earbuds in.

Living on a hype plane
Is an emotional strain
That can pull you
Down the drain!

The hype trap
Will sit you
On the lap
Of deception!

Dare to step
Beyond the hype
And take a swipe
At opening the pipe
Of humility and truth.

People see your hype
But God sees your heart.
Learn to be the type
That will drop your hype
And open up your heart.

When hype is followed
Lies are swallowed.

The more hype
That goes viral
The more society’s
In a downward spiral.

People like hype
Because they hope
That it will wipe
Their problems away.

Community
Is heart unity.
Let Jesus
Unite your heart
With Himself
And with others.

When life’s problems storm your stable, the risen Jesus will keep you stable in the storm. Let Him replace your hype with heroic hope!

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The gift of government — “Jesus first!”

God gave humanity government in order to maintain social order, ensure domestic tranquility, and prevent chaos (which is even more harmful and destructive to people than corrupt and cruel government). Christ-followers’ first loyalty is supposed to be to the risen Jesus and after that to the government where they live. When that government (or anyone else) demands disobedience to the living Jesus, a Christ-disciple is called to humbly and respectively disobey while peacefully submitting to the consequences.

When Christians (as often happens in countries) begin to obey their government (or their desires) ahead of the Headship of Jesus their “salt loses its savor” and the light of Christ in them is hidden from those who most need to see it. Their proclamation that “Jesus is Lord,” is revealed to be mere words for them. Then their fellow citizens begin to see the Gospel as just religious hype. No Christian should ever say “My country first!” Wherever we live as Christ-followers, let us boldly proclaim (and demonstrate by our lifestyle), “Jesus first!”

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Be a heart cultivator

If you won’t continually cultivate nourishing thoughts, feelings, and desires in your heart, deceitful and destructive ones will grow naturally. The thoughts, feelings, and desires that compel and control you are the ones you have cultivated within you. To keep your heart from wilting with worry cultivate it with hope!

A Christ-follower is a heart-cultivator improving the soil of his heart so it can grow and flourish with the fruit of God’s Spirit. Make your heart a greenhouse for God’s Spirit, not a warehouse of deception.

To cultivate continual awareness of the presence of the risen Christ requires much more than a daily dose of devotional literature. It’s an every moment thing. In a society filled with aggressive weeds it takes great courage to resist them and to cultivate God’s seeds in your heart.

The happiest people are cultivators who weed bad seeds from their heart and nurture it with Christ’s compassion, humility, and hope. To grow the fruit of God’s Spirit, cultivate your heart.

Cultivate your heart!
It’s time to start
To cultivate your heart.
Where it is closed
Let it be exposed.
Where it’s stoney
Remove all that’s phony.
Pull out all of your weeds
To make room for God’s seeds.
Life’s only real security
Is to cultivate
Christ’s purity
In your heart.

If you will persistently cultivate
God’s will within your heart
You will grow to celebrate
A harvest of the fruit
Of His presence.

The word “ekklesia” (translated as “church” in almost all English Bibles) is a political term. It was the proper name of the town meeting in ancient Greek cities where all citizens were considered equal, and anyone could speak out in the assembly. Jesus said that He would build His town meeting (ekklesia) on the rock of revelation (Spirit-given insight and awe) not on human organizational or theological understanding. Christ’s town meeting creates an environment of open, Spirit-led sharing (1 Corinthians 14:26) where Jesus can be the present, active, and hand-on Head personally directing His gathered body so it can literally demonstrate “the fullness of Him” and be His light in human societies. (Ephesians 1:23.)

When the light that shines in members of Christ’s body is dimmed by weeds of religious tradition, fleshly desires, deceitfulness, human insecurities, and other things, a nation grows dark. To reverse that trend requires Christ’s light bearers begin to cultivate in their own heart the ingredients listed in 2 Chronicles 7:14.

The essence of Christ’s ekklesia is to cultivate an environment where hearts are willing to be cultivated, exposed, and healed. To believe that your desires change reality Is a delusion. Wanting something doesn’t make it true and doesn’t make it right.

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