Steve Simms's Blog, page 97

The Jesus Prayer & The Philokalia

I discovered the Jesus Prayer years ago when I found the book, “The Way of the Pilgrim.” It’s about a Russian man who roams from Ukraine to the Russian far east. As he wanders, he tries to “pray without ceasing” by constantly repeating the Jesus Prayer in his mind. He has many amazing encounters with God. His prize possession is a copy of the 5 volumes of the “Philokalia,” a collection of writings by ancient Orthodox monks who lived at various times during the 4th through the 19th centuries, which he reads along the way.

“The Way of the Pilgrim” inspired me to begin praying the Jesus Prayer and to find a copy of the “Philokalia.” I’ve read it through 3 times and frequently read different parts of it. It’s the most powerful Christian book I’ve ever read after the Bible.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” The Philokalia and the Jesus Prayer continue to touch me deeply, to open my heart more fully to God, and to help me to rely on God’s mercy rather than on my effort. When I can’t sleep at night, I repeat the Jesus Prayer over and over in my mind. Often, I will repeat it during the day.

The Philokalia is about how to hear God’s voice and submit to His will. Monks share practical ideas as well as their own experiences. Their testimonies are powerful and often match what God is doing in my heart. I’ve never been much into formalized religion and liturgical prayers, but God has used those Orthodox monks and their Jesus Prayer greatly in my life!

[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-35951" />Photo by Julia Volk on Pexels.com

Stationary wasn’t stationary

Stationary was once popular, but it’s now becoming rare. It wasn’t stationary.

Most mornings I wake up with a word in my mind that I get up and write about. Today my mind was empty, so I asked Jesus to give me a word to write about. Suddenly out of nowhere, the word “stationary” appeared in my mind. I didn’t think I could write anything about stationary, so I resisted a bit, but then I heard Him say, “Just trust Me.” So, I’m writing about stationary today.

To treat life like a stationary bike is to stay stuck in one place. No matter how hard you pedal you don’t move forward.

When Christians are spiritually stationary and not moving forward with the risen Jesus, they’re refusing to let the Lord write on their heart. Christ-followers don’t stay put. They follow and obey the risen Jesus wherever He leads them. Faith that follows and obeys the risen Jesus is offensive to people who want to remain stationary.

Jesus objects to you being a stationary object. He calls out, “Follow Me!” Make your heart “stationary” that God can write on, not “stationary” so that it hardens and seldom moves to follow God’s Spirit. Fill your texts, emails, posts, and stationary with encouragement and kindness, not with despair and rudeness.

My relationship with the risen Jesus is a daily voyage of discovery that is never stationary but always grows and moves forward. For me following Jesus is like riding a mountain bike to glorious heights, not sitting on a stationary religious bike and going nowhere.

To dance with the living Jesus, you can’t remain stationary. You must move as He leads you from within. True love isn’t stationary. It always grows stronger.

Rule-based Christianity is like a stationary bike — no matter how hard you pedal your hard work won’t take you forward. True Christianity is about ever moving forward as a follower and disciple of the living Jesus, not about a stationary place to weekly sit through religious rituals. It’s about being Christ’s stationary and allowing Him to continually write His word on your heart.

Jesus, You be the pen and let me be Your stationary. Write Your will on my heart.

Discipleship is not
A drydocked boat
That stays stationary
And refuses to float
With the current
Of God’s Spirit.

[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-35946" width="688" height="1031" srcset="https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co... 688w, https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co... 100w, https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co... 200w, https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co... 768w, https://stevesimms.files.wordpress.co... 867w" sizes="(max-width: 688px) 100vw, 688px" />Photo by Melike Benli on Pexels.com

Jesus doesn’t like lukewarm religion!

Since Jesus doesn’t like lukewarm religion, should we? See Revelation 3:16. I’m desperate for more of Jesus. I long to see the body of Christ wake up, shake off lukewarmness, and get on fire for God.

It’s sad
When religion
That’s lukewarm
Is seen as the norm
For Christianity.

Jesus is everywhere
But lukewarm religion
Meets to follow a program
As if He isn’t there.

Neither lukewarm coffee
Nor lukewarm religion
Is very effective
At waking people up.

It’s hard to lose
Lukewarm religion
If all you want
Is to spiritually snooze.

To be lukewarm
Is to be asleep
To the thrill
And glorious appeal
Of the living Jesus.

Lukewarm religion
Likes to scold
People who are ice cold
And to stop
Those whose heart
Is burning with red hot
Love for Jesus.

A cold-hearted culture
Won’t be inspired
By lukewarm religion.
A Jesus revolution
Is required.

Lukewarm religion
Rarely makes room
For people
Whose heart is hot
With a whole lot
Of passion for Jesus.

Religious lukewarmness
Will persist
Until Christians
Learn to resist
The religious
Status quo
And begin
To freely flow
With God’s Spirit.

Religious words
Are like birds
That fly across
The mind
But leave the heart
Behind
Unchanged.
Religious reflection
Is not the same as
Direct connection
With the risen Jesus.

When presented
With no thrill
Lukewarm sermons
Can easily conceal
That Jesus is present
And real.

If we wouldn’t serve Jesus lukewarm coffee, we probably shouldn’t serve Him lukewarm religion. Revival occurs when Christians have the courage to let the living Jesus be unscripted and uncontrolled.

[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-35934" />Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

Invisible things are at work in human beings

Invisible things matter. What’s unseen is very significant! Too many Christians have been trained to overthink religion and to overlook the invisible Jesus.

Invisible things work inside people day and night — a churning collage of confusing thoughts, emotions, desires and fears — producing the storm of human angst that attacks our hope and disrupts our mental health. The invisible Jesus will calm your invisible inner storm with His invisible presence and peace if you will let Him.

The truth can set you free: 1) Honesty admit your sins to God and to yourself. 2) Ask for and humbly receive His forgiveness. 3) Surrender control of your life to the living Jesus as you daily obey His promptings.

Since Jesus lives within me, cleanses me with His blood, transforms me with His glorious presence, and empowers me with His righteousness, I am no longer trapped in the up and down storm of self-approval and condemnation. Jesus is an ongoing daybreak ever enlightening my heart–a never ending sunrise within me.

[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-35924" />Photo by Kalpit Khatri on Pexels.com

Choice and consequences

As humans we like to pretend that we can make bad and/or wrongful choices and have no negative consequences. Reality disagrees!

If you plant something it will grow consequences. Be wise about what you plant (or allow to be planted) in your mind and heart. Choose what makes you smile with a wholesome heart!

If your life is in a place that you don’t want it to be, your decisions helped direct it there. Much misfortune and mental/emotional anguish is self-manufactured.

Catastrophic consequences often begin with tiny bad choices that gradually become compulsive habits and then tormenting addictions. When you make choices (even small ones), you cause consequences that cultivate and create your circumstances.

Negative consequences are wake-up calls trying to notify you about bad choices you are making so that you can begin to choose better. You are free to make choices that cultivate peace of mind rather than choices that cause guilt and inner torment.

Negative thinking will mess with your emotions and your rationality and produce negative consequences in your mind and heart. To blame anyone or anything for the consequences of your thoughts and decisions is to deny the truth.

Instead of making choices based on feelings, desires, or compulsions, it’s more effective to think about the future consequences and to choose based on wisdom. If you’re unwilling to speak the truth in love and to do the what’s right regardless of the circumstances, you’re following your own desires instead of the Holy Spirit.

One of the most destructive consequences of wrongdoing is guilt. Stopping the wrongdoing, making amends where possible, and seeking forgiveness will stop the guilt.

[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-35917" />Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Respecting rights . . .

People have a right to pretend to be the opposite gender. I have a right to kindly believe that they aren’t.

Many people disagree with my belief that Jesus transforms me and guides me from within, but that doesn’t mean that they hate me. I disagree with people who believe that they can change their gender, but I definitely don’t hate them.

A rock-hard heart is stone faced.

The purpose of your conscience isn’t to make you feel guilty but to guide you to a lifestyle that is free from the chains of corruption. Fear hardens a human heart so that it can’t hear the conscience, but faith tenderizes it.

A hardened heart ignores and resists the conscience. A tender heart listens to and obeys it.

People with a hardened heart think, say, and do heartless things. Having a hard heart isn’t healthy. A hardened heart can’t see beyond the cataracts that engulf it. It’s out of touch with reality.

A hardened heart is weak and fearful. People who keep their heart tender are strong and courageous. A hardened heart causes dry eyes that are afraid to cry. The living Jesus wants to give you a heart that never hardens.

A hard heart beats like the slow bass drum in a funeral dirge. A tender heart dances to the joy of the Lord.

When the human heart is tenderized and sensitized by the Holy Spirit’s inner surgery and attuned to ongoing awareness of presence of the living Jesus, tears are no longer quenched, but easily flow. The pain and prison of pride and embarrassment pass away. Streams of repentance and forgiveness, rivers of love and compassion, and floods of joy and peace endlessly overflow from the circumcised heart.

A culture that promotes self-focus winds its way to confusion, conflict, and chaos. Hardened human desires, feelings, and opinions don’t create or alter reality, no matter how loudly people claim they do. No one has a right to mistreat another person, but everyone has the right to disagree with other people’s behavior.

Many hardhearted people want to be separated from God. He respects their freedom so much that He’s not going to force them to love and obey Him.

If faith as a tiny grain of mustard seed can move a mountain, surely you have the faith to cast tormenting and tempting thoughts, desires, and feelings out of your heart and mind! Do it every day.

[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-35899" />Photo by Thamires Costa on Pexels.com

The deception of self-focus

Self-focus makes it easy to decorate our desires, feelings, and opinions with fancy justifications and elaborate excuses in order to create an outward appearance of goodness while hiding and denying the reality of the pain, confusion, and corruption that is going on deep inside of us. Three warnings systems try to alert us to our self-deception.

Our God-given conscience sounds out within us and attempts to guide us to truth, but we too often override it and eventually learn not to hear it. The Spirit of God, speaking to our heart, tries to draw us near to the living Jesus and to empower us with His active presence, yet even if we appear outwardly close to Him with religious words and a mask of righteousness, our heart can be far from Him. The Scriptures give us supernatural revelation by showing us the way that Spirit-led people learned to set aside their desires, feelings, and opinions and to experience and obey the living God instead.

Life would drastically improve both for us and for our society if we would begin to focus our heart on following the God-given warning systems rather than on satisfying our self-focused whims. To do that: 1) Continually cooperate with your conscience. 2) Be ever led by God’s Spirit. 3) Daily read the Bible with an open heart and apply it to yourself first.

[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-35890" />Photo by u0410u043du043du0430 u0413u0430u043bu0430u0448u0435u0432u0430 on Pexels.com

Being Spirit-led to soar beyond religious legalism

The Law doesn’t win. The Spirit does!

The Law sets external boundaries. Biblically, the Pharisees demonstrated that hardened human hearts can outwardly stay within legalistic boundaries (and believe that they are “good people”) while inwardly being so much of a mess that they could even embrace the evil and cruelty of killing Jesus and also mistreating “the least of these.” (Historically, slaveholders also demonstrated that.) In reality, it’s easy to live by “having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” That’s why Paul said to “turn away” from a lifestyle of ceremonially hiding behind religious rules and self-justifications that have no power to heal, transform, and empower our hardened heart.

Paul was a transformed Pharisee who went from considering himself a champion do-gooder to a “wretched man” and “the chief of sinners.” He wasn’t changed by self-effort or by rule-following, but by a profound inner encounter and ongoing intimate relationship with the living Jesus that he called “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” That shifted him from a law enforcer (both on himself and others) to God’s Spirit-follower. “But as many as are led by the Spirit are the children of God.” (Romans 8:14.)

Being Spirit-led isn’t rule-following religion that satisfies itself with outward activities like ceremonialism, sermons, and studies. Being led by the Spirit means to let the risen Jesus ever live within and through you and to allow Him to personally direct all that you think, say, and do as His rivers of living water freely flow from your innermost being producing the fruit and releasing the gifts of the Spirit to reveal His “greater glory” that infinitely surpasses outward law-keeping!

I love to hang out with people who are visibly and sincerely excited about Jesus. Unfortunately, they are often hard to find.

[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-35883" />Photo by Ru00e9mi Berger on Pexels.com

Christ-saturated or religiously dominated?

Pride is self-saturation. It’s a swamp of anxiety that is always on guard and defensive, but Christ-saturation abounds with inner peace.

Christians should be Christ-saturated not religiously masqueraded. If you’re saturated with the risen Jesus, only a Christ-like attitude will come out of you when life knocks you around.

It’s time to release Christians from religious domination so they can grow in their ability to interact with the living Jesus and learn to be continually led by His Spirit. Instead of trying to mentally understand God we need to humbly stand under His authority and let Him lead us moment by moment with His Spirit.

Every time we surrender (in deed or in thought) to our own desires, instead of submitting to God’s will, we step into the sin swamp of self-saturation. The only way out is to repent — to dethrone self by turning away from pride and humbly receiving God’s grace and forgiveness purchased by the blood of Jesus that empowers us to live by the Spirit instead of by our desires. See Romans 8:14.

To go beyond an academic study approach to Scripture to a revelatory approach of letting the words burn in my heart and renew me from within is powerful! It takes me past merely trying to mentally understand the Bible to encountering and being led by the living Jesus Christ.

[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-35877" />Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com