Steve Simms's Blog, page 94

Listening to and relying on Jesus

Religious compliance without daily reliance on the living Jesus falls far short of true Christianity. Learn to daily rely on the risen Jesus not just to outwardly comply with religious roles and rules. The kingdom of God is the place of complete reliance on and surrender to the living Jesus. Find that place in your heart. True Christianity is about Christ-reliance, not about self-reliance.

The human mind and heart are easily deceived by fallacies and illusions. Listening intently to your conscience and the risen Jesus will keep you on the path of honesty and truth. Listen to God’s still small voice within you! Say, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”

It takes courage to rely on the risen Jesus and to deny and defy your own desires, but that’s the calling of true Christianity. Christ-reliance is essential for a Christian lifestyle. Letting Christ continually live and work in you produces abounding hope, but self-reliance produces pride, alienation, exhaustion, and disappointment. Christians who neglect to train their mind and heart in Christ-reliance often wonder how they get so far off track.

Self-forgiveness relies on self-effort and self-perception. God’s forgiveness is freely given to those who turn away from self and rely on the risen Jesus and His sacrifice on the Cross.

“Self-forgiveness” without the ongoing experience and inner cleansing of God’s forgiveness is psychobabble. “Self-forgiveness” tries to erase guilt by denial or will power, but God’s forgiveness removes guilt from those who will humbly and remorsefully confess what they have done to cause it and rely on the living Jesus Christ instead of self to forgive them. 1 John 1:9 and Romans 8:1.

Human reason is unreliable. Look at the mess it has led us to. It’s time to rely on the risen Jesus and be led by His still small voice. To listen to and rely on Jesus is an amazing adventure!

“All in” with Jesus?

As long as you’re holding out anything from Jesus, you’re not “all in” with Him! When you’re “all in” with Jesus, you don’t think that being radical for Him is fanatical.

To be “all in” with Jesus is:

To go out of your way to follow His way.To be continually aware of, empowered by, and grateful for His forgiveness, mercy, and grace!To let your heart be continually ablaze with His presence and power.To abandon self-focus.To live by “Not my will, but His will be done.”To release those being held captive by the gates of hell, not to defend a religious fort.To keep your attention off of the distractions of the sideline and to live every day following and obeying Jesus on the frontline.To continually cry out for an even closer relationship with Him.To refuse to let pride tempt you to decide not to daily reside and continually abide in His presence.To be transformed “from glory to glory by His actual presence, not just be mentally informed about Him.To daily rely on what Jesus has done for you and is now doing inside of you instead of relying on your own human self-effort.To refuse to hold back your heart from Him.To live outside of your human comfort zones.

“All in for Jesus?” If you will become continually conscious of Christ’s presence and identity, you won’t be concerned about your identity!

God’s forgiveness is free. We only need to give up our pride and admit that we need it. It breaks the chains of shame off of human hearts. Now and always go all in!

It’s fine to listen to what God is telling others, but it’s much more important to hear what God is saying to you. Be all in!

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If you have ears to hear the Spirit, use them.

Victorious Christian living requires the courage, honesty, and humility to open wide your heart to the risen Jesus and to other believers. If you will read the Bible with an open heart, what God has said in the past will come alive within you and you will hear Him speaking directly to you.

Near the beginning of the book of Revelation the risen Jesus proclaims numerous times that the Spirit of God is speaking to His people. Are you listening and hearing what the Spirit is saying to your heart? To be led by the Spirit, Christians as members of Christ’s body need to open wide our heart to God’s Spirit and focus our attention on directly hearing what He is now saying inside of us. It’s not enough just to hear a human voice tell us about God. We need to personally hear the present voice of the Spirit speaking within us. It’s urgent that you open your heart to continually hear His “still small voice” and begin to say and do what God tells you to.

If you’re not confident that you’ve been forgiven, you won’t have the courage listen to God’s direct voice. If you will ask for and receive God’s forgiveness whenever you resist His will, then you’ll have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. Jesus is the reason that forgiveness is always in season!

The Bible never calls the proclamation or teaching of the Good News of Jesus a sermon. A sermon should never be a substitute for hearing what God’s Spirit is saying directly to you. We need to listen to God more than to men.

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You can’t bury guilt

Humans spend much time and energy trying to bury their guilt, but humbly receiving and walking in Christ’s forgiveness is much more effective. Fully receiving and living in God’s forgiveness will greatly improve your mental health. Once you truly experience Christ’s forgiveness you’ll never be the same.

If you’re not convinced that you’re forgiven, you’ll keep doing things that heap more guilt on you. When you know your sins have been forgiven, you’re very careful to go and sin no more. To hold on to sin is embrace guilt and reject forgiveness.

Jesus died so you can be forgiven. To live in guilt is to miss out on His mercy. 1 John 1:9. Guilty feelings vanish when you’re convinced God has forgiven you. When you’re unsure guilty feelings will remain. There’s no delight in being dominated by deceitful desires; there is only guilt and bondage.

People love to say, “I’m a good person,” because most of us want people to think we are good, but our secret inner struggle with shame, sin, and guilt says that we’re not as good as we say we are. The Good News of forgiveness for and deliverance from sin doesn’t sound like good news to people who boast, “I’m a good person.”

Good people don’t need God’s forgiveness. Guilty people do. We’re all guilty of something! Good people don’t battle guilt because they don’t think, say, feel, or do the guilt producing things that the rest of us do.

Once we truly realize our badness, Jesus is no longer just a nice religious story. He’s the Good News who daily rescues us from our deception and bondage. I’ve always had a strong conscience and I’ve mostly obeyed it so I used to think that I was a good person, but following the risen Jesus has caused me to agree with Scripture: “O wretched man that I am!” “There is within me, that is within my flesh, no good thing.” Now I know that I desperately need Christ’s ongoing grace and mercy.

People who have experienced God’s forgiveness don’t want to live without it, so they quickly ask for it every time they give in to temptation. Every time you think, say, feel, or do something guilt producing, immediately resist it and ask God for forgiveness and freedom from it.

The Gospel (the Good News of freedom from spiritual bondage) is a threat to religion. Most of the religious leaders who knew about Jesus’ earthly ministry were threatened by Him, so they rejected His message and wanted Him dead. Throughout history religion has seemed to prefer a dead Jesus (or a Jesus restricted to Heaven) instead of an ongoing, personal, Spirit-led relationship with the living, present, and active Jesus.

Heaven is for the forgiven (not for the deserving) and God’s forgiveness is available for all who want it and will humbly receive it. To be a citizen of the kingdom of God is to let your mind, heart, and life be ruled by King Jesus. The more I realize the reality of Jesus the less I’m satisfied with religion. If church is “a hospital for sinners” why do so few of its “patients” openly admit that they are sinners who desperately need Christ’s ongoing forgiveness, healing, and deliverance?

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Everyone needs forgiveness

Self-justification might temporarily hide guilt and shame behind self-deception, but it can’t pull them out by the roots. The forgiveness that matters most is the forgiveness that removes guilt and shame. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” His forgiveness truly cleanses a human heart.

Guilt and shame can cause life on earth to feel like hell. To reject Christ’s forgiveness is to embrace guilt and shame.

Guilt and shame will keep you from being close to Jesus. A heart-to-heart relationship with the living Jesus will keep you from guilt and shame. Assurance of salvation without assurance of forgiveness is deceptive. 1 John 1:9.

The pursuit of happiness? The happiest times in life are the moments of self-forgetting, not the moments of self-focus.

The more a society focuses on personal desire satisfaction the less stable it becomes. Jesus is more powerful than your feelings and desires. Obey Him, not them. To me, most church services seem to be set up to avoid ongoing, heart-stirring intimacy with the risen Jesus.

Who most needs God’s forgiveness? I was thinking about Paul calling himself “the chief of sinners” when a picture popped in my mind. All the people who had ever lived were racing to see who is the worst sinner in the history of the world. Suddenly the finish line appeared, and all mankind was there at the same moment. It was a photo finish. Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.

Denial
Might work
For awhile
To quiet guilt
And silence shame
But only Christ’s forgiveness
Can erase the self-blame
Deep in your heart.

Unless we’re intensely aware
Of Christ’s ongoing mercy
We’ll want to avoid
Opening our heart
To His presence.

The more you let
Christ’s forgiveness
Rescue and cleanse you
From behaviors that cause
Guilt and shame
The more joy
Will dance in your heart.

Throughout the day
Every time I’m drawn away
From Christ’s presence,
I shower my soul
In His forgiveness
And He renews me
Right away!

When desire and deception
Are allowed to dance together
They lead to temptation
And to the mental justification
Of whatever we want to do,
Inviting guilt and shame
To rudely interrupt the dance
With their emotional devastation.

The law brings us
To the most important
Self-perception.
It makes us aware of
Our love for
Self-deception
And our never-ending need
For the ongoing reception
Of Christ’s rivers
Of living water
That give us revelation
Deep within our heart.

Mercy, mercy,
Marvelous mercy!
God opened my eyes
And let me see
Christ’s amazing love
And forgiveness for me!

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Which AI? Artificial intelligence or authentic intelligence?

Authentic intelligence requires insight, discernment, and wisdom, not just computing. Artificial intelligence merely scans and sorts the information that it has access to. Authentic intelligence chooses to seek and submit to righteousness and truth.

Artificial intelligence is mindless information processing devoid of consciousness and conscience, but authentic intelligence requires the awareness of consciousness and the discernment of conscience. Authentic intelligence requires the willingness and the wisdom to see life from God’s perspective not from our own.

The knowledge of good and evil causes us to rely on our own self-wisdom which, apart from God’s life, is artificial intelligence that is easily deceived. The life of God is authentic intelligence offered freely to us by the risen Jesus (the way, the truth, and the life) through inner rivers of everflowing living water that release within us God’s direct revelation and the leading of the Spirit. Brokenness when humbly embraced shows us the fallacy of our artificial human intelligence and opens our heart to the authentic intelligence of God’s point of view, empowering us to continually surrender to God’s life and to “abide in the vine” (of the living Jesus).

Mental health requires both a healthy brain and a self-disciplined mind. If your life is stuck in artificial intelligence and isn’t overflowing with love, joy, peace, and the rest of the fruit of the Spirit, an ongoing connection with the living Jesus will change that. The best way to encourage yourself is to encourage someone else.

The artificial intelligence that says that God only speaks to and through important religious leaders has crippled Christianity. God is looking for authentic Spirit-led followers of the risen Jesus, not artificial “parishioners” or church members.

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Speaking in tongues is better than Starbucks (and any bar anywhere).

If it’s acceptable for people to talk about drinking coffee and beer it’s acceptable to talk about speaking in tongues! So here goes . . .

To neglect
Or reject
God’s gift
Of tongues
Is to miss out
On something
That’s infinitely better
Than coffee or tea
Or energy drinks
Or alcohol
Or drugs.
Utilize
Don’t analyze
God’s beautiful gift
Of praying in tongues.

God’s gift of speaking in tongues is an amazing gift that opens our awareness to the reality and presence of the living Jesus. We can daily utilize it to walk in the power of God’s Spirit.

Speaking in tongues–what a beautiful way to let the Holy Spirit flow through you! Praying in tongues throughout the day will ignite a spiritual fire in your heart and keep it burning!

Praying in tongues is humbling to the human mind, but God “gives grace to the humble.” When Christ-followers pray in tongues, we move our mouth but God’s Spirit gives us unknown words that flow like rivers of living water from our innermost being.

Speaking in tongues is a free gift from God. You don’t need to work it up. Simply receive it and then speak out in faith and let it flow! Only God can tame your tongue. Fear of speaking in tongues keeps many Christians from experiencing a powerful gift of God’s Spirit.

If speaking in tongues was a good gift at Pentecost, it’s still a good gift today. Open your heart and your mouth and let God’s Spirit flow from within you with His supernatural words! On Pentecost “they all spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance.” I believe that “all” Christ-followers can let Spirit-given utterance flow from within them today.

Daily praying in tongues brings the heart-moving gift of Pentecost out of the past and into the present moment! Praying in tongues releases amazing love, power, and joy in a human heart.

Receiving God’s gift of tongues opens the door to receive other gifts of the Spirit. When the devil tries to devour you don’t just sit back and let him. Resist him by praying in tongues!

Resist the devil and turn to the living Jesus with your whole heart. Praying in tongues can help you do that. Hearing a Pentecost Sunday (Acts chapter 2) sermon about tongues is nothing like actually praying in tongues yourself.

When I speak in tongues Jesus seems more real and present to me than the physical world and I bask in His presence.”Jesus loves me this I know . . .” I’m overcome by His love every time I pray in tongues. I’ve been speaking in tongues for more than 5 decades. It’s kept my heart on fire with love for Jesus!

Negative thoughts naw on your mental health and chew up your hope. Speaking in tongues can help you avoid them!

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Sincere criticism can help make church better

Pastors don’t have a right to demand that they not be criticized. Wise pastors welcome criticism because they realize that they need the accountability. A pastor who demands that people in the congregation not disagree with Him has a lot of insecurity.

Every Christian is called to be a priest and minister. Ministry isn’t about a job or a title or a salary or a pulpit. To outsource your Christianity to a pastor is to ignore Christ’s desire to personally direct you as your Shepherd.

To say that it’s bad to criticize church is to overlook Paul’s words, “having a form of godliness, but denying the power, from such turn away.” To tell people not to criticize church is to encourage them to blindly follow religious spirits.

To say that Christians shouldn’t point out the flaws in institutional church is to ignore the words of the Old Testament prophets. To say that the Protestant Reformation was good, but that Christians today shouldn’t criticize church is hypocritical.

God wants to speak to all Christians. We all need to listen to His Spirit and read the Bible, not just listen to sermons.

Jesus can’t be your Savior if there’s nothing you need to be saved from. It’s easy to say that Jesus lives in your heart, but your lifestyle lets people know whether He’s really in residence within you.

Fairh is revelatory. It’s a gift of the Spirit. “By faith Moses seeing Him who is invisible fled Egypt.” Without faith and revelation shinning in our heart we don’t truly understand the Gospel facts. Although the two men on the road to Emmaus knew the facts of the resurrection and had the presence of the living Jesus, they lacked revelation so Jesus felt like a stranger to them until revelation burst forth in their heart. Then they were filled with awareness of and excitement about the risen Jesus. Flesh and blood and facts alone can’t give us revelation and faith. They come from the Father. “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our heart to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

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Google Jesus

If the presence of the risen Jesus isn’t continually surging from within you like rivers of living water, you’re missing out on “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” To present Jesus as stuck in history, in Heaven, or in a church is to deny the good news of His current presence everywhere. People who passionately love Jesus experience a supernatural connection when they open their heart to each other.

To do what you want is to seek the kingdom of self. To do what God wants is to seek the kingdom of God.

I want to let the Holy Spirit freely move me about the way leaves let the wind move them about. I want to be prompted by God’s Spirit not by my desires. If others want them, that’s their choice but I ban from my mind books and media that promote ungodliness.

Christianity isn’t about accumulating religious information week after week. It’s about opening your heart wider and wider to Jesus. Once you experience Spirit-led heart connection with other Christ-followers it’s hard to be satisfied with spectator religion.

“Looking unto Jesus.” Jesus is the Light. He should never, even for a moment, be a sight unseen.

If hearing
And obeying Jesus
Isn’t the way you go
You’ll live your days
Dazed by vertigo,
And the things
You think
That you know
Will throw
Your life off course.

When you allow your desire
To compel and require
That you follow its path
You’ll say stuck in the mire
Of striving to feed
The consuming inner fire
Of self-focus.

The living Jesus
Isn’t a topic to discuss
On a church “campus.”
He’s present with us
And wants to
Personally lead us.

When people’s input
Isn’t allowed
Church becomes
A silent crowd
Confined to listen
To only one man’s perspective.

Unseen light
Makes the brightest day
Seem like night.
Without physical sight
And spiritual insight,
Life is full of fright.
Have courage to see
How good life can be.

Google Jesus
All day long
Not on a device,
But in your heart.
He offers His glory
Like a song
To stream in your soul.
He paid the cost
To make you whole.
Let Him ever flow
From within you
And have full control
Of your daily life.

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Life surrounded by screaming screens

Humanity today
Is surrounded by
Constant distractions
And ungodly attractions.
Phones, TVs,
Music, movies
And sin-filled screens
That scream,
“Look at me!”
Sometimes that’s all
We can hear or see.
O, me!
How will we ever
“Behold the Lamb of God”?
How can we be
“Dead to sin,”
When we live in
Focused attention on it
And let it sift
Our heart and mind
And shift
Us away from
Focusing on Jesus
Day in and day out?

There’s no comfort in a closed heart, only alienation, loneliness, and despair. A society brainwashed by non-stop programming and stimulating substances sets aside heart-felt sensitivity and sincere spontaneity and settles into robotic conformity. Escape while you still can!

Open your heart
Walk in God’s light
And life will be
A true delight.

When Christianity abandoned interactive Spirit-led gatherings, it settled into formalism and religious programming.

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