Giving the glory to the One who gives the ability

Posted on September 10, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.
View all responses

Professional football players have a saying: “NFL means Not For Long.” They realize that their football career will be a short and a small part of their life. Many of them realize that they need to use their fame and platform for more than personal bragging rights.

The professional athletes I respect the most are the ones who give the glory to the One who gave them the ability — the ones who want the honor to go to God instead of to themselves. When someone makes it to the top in their profession, it’s easy for them to bask in the prominence, rewards, and wealth that comes to them and to let their pride lead the way. Some people, however, become deeply aware that all they have accomplished and received is a gift from the One who gave them life, health and talent. Those are the ones who use their platform to point people to Jesus.

I admire people who admire and honor God, not just in their public persona but in the way they live their life. The people who do that from their heart would rather that I focus on the Jesus who they love than on them and their name.

Physical life is for a limited time only” — “Not For Long.” There are no permanent residents on earth, and we are all forced to retire from life. Where will you go when you go? God’s not looking for your ability, but for your surrendered response to His ability and your willingness to be ever led by His Spirit. (See Romans 8:14.)

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I want the presence and power of Jesus, not a pulpit and a platform

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Steve Simms

A pulpit controlled and dominated by one man silences the rest of the body of Christ. When ordinary Christ-followers are prompted by God’s Spirit to speak, the preacher in the pulpit too often says, “Zip it!” Words from the pulpit too often take the “two-edged sword” of the Bible and dull it.

When a pulpit on a platform became the norm for Christian meetings, gatherings of the body of Christ shifted from being Spirit-led and instead became preacher led. No Christian should ever be a passive mental puppet to a pastor in a pulpit. Pulpit talks train Christians to be audience members who sit but don’t always listen and rarely remember (much less do) what they did hear.

The ancient Greek ekklesia gave the platform to the people and let anyone present speak. That’s what Jesus said He will build.

One man preaching in a pulpit is not a safeguard against deception. Search the Scriptures for yourself with an open heart.

When the pulpit and the platform are open to the people, Jesus can speak through whoever He wants to. When the pulpit and the platform are off limits to the people, the pastor has a monopoly.

As I was walking this morning after writing this, I saw two trees — a small, dead tree on the left and a huge, flourishing tree. In an instant I felt that I was being shown an image that shows the difference between man-run church and Christ’s ekklesia (Spirit-led town hall meeting).

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Relaxing inside

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
How do you relax?
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It’s hard to relax when living in the Western culture that keeps us mentally weary and emotionally burdened. Resting the body seems to have little or no impact on the worries of the mind and the anxieties of the heart. I find that I need far more than physical relaxation.

My goal is to relax on the inside — to protect my mind and my heart from thoughts, feelings, desires, words, and images that try to harass me. Over the years, I’ve learned how to effectively resist and drive out the inner torment that continually tries to trouble me and steal my inner peace. I’ve trained my mind and my heart to focus on what is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy and to avoid what isn’t.

Years ago, I discovered an amazing Presence within me that comforts and strengthens me and guides me to amazing inner rest and relaxation. The Bible calls that Presence, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Jesus said: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I’ve found that statement to be so true! When I keep my heart open and attentive to the risen Jesus Christ, peace and relaxation flood my soul. Every day I work to set my affections on Jesus — to listen to and obey Him and to rest in the awe of how He works in and around me.

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Can prayer be Spirit-led and Bible-based?

Posted on September 8, 2023 by Steve Simms

Too often today our prayers are more based on our own desires and sentimentalism than they are aligned with Scripture and burning with the passionate fire of the Holy Spirit. Because we aren’t continually opening our heart to Scripture and surrendering to the moment-by-moment promptings of the Holy Spirit, we are easily led into false concepts of who God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) really is — the eternal and uncreated Creator of all that exists.

The first Christ-followers prayed to the God who (and identified God as the One who) “made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.” They poured out their heart to the God who is the Creator of all that is. They wouldn’t settle for a lesser god, a god that was just one of multitudes of gods. The definition of who God is (and who Jesus is) mattered greatly to them. They stayed boldly consistent with and aligned with the teachings of the Scriptures and with the presence and reality of the Holy Spirit’s conviction and leadership.

God didn’t respond to their prayers with sentimentalism and religious entertainment. Instead, He poured out earthshaking, life-transforming power that is documented throughout the book of Acts and in the rest of the of the New Testament.

Heart-flows from God’s Spirit are much more powerful than mental rows of religious information. Grow with the flow of God’s Spirit. It’s not wise for Christians to make idols out of Christian leaders (or political leaders).

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Giving up the harmful word

Posted on September 8, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
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I’ve spent my life giving up harmful, tormenting, and unkind words — the bossy kind of words that regularly barge uninvited into the psyche and try to bully and destroy our inner peace. From my earliest memories those intrusive words have tried to welcome themselves into my thoughts, but I forcefully resisted them because I didn’t like what they were telling me and how they made me feel. Sometimes I would fight hostile thoughts all day long. I continue to resist them to this day. My mind belongs to me and I’m never going to surrender it to tormenting thoughts.

A tool that helps me keep out the troubling thoughts is to fill my mind with hope-filled words. I consume positive books (especially the Bible) and they saturate my mental state with joy and encouragement as long as I will stick with them and apply what they say in my daily life.

Protecting your mind from damaging thoughts isn’t easy. It takes much courage to persistently fight them and to make them flee. from your cranium, However, if you allow destructive thoughts to direct your daily life, they will work diligently to destroy you.

Some words are best resisted and rejected. Give ’em up! Drive ’em out! Replace ’em with hope-filled words.

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Happiness is being grudge-free!

Posted on September 7, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Are you holding a grudge? About?
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I’ve learned that a grudge can nudge people into anger, hatred, and despair. Still, some folks savor a grudge like a chocolate lover eating fudge. No matter how much pain their grudge causes them, they won’t budge an inch away from it.

Like most people, I could find many reasons to refuse to forgive but I don’t want to have to trudge through the sludge and drudge of holding a grudge. A grudge would put too big of a smudge on my heart and would cause me to harshly judge those who have wounded me.

For more insightful (and entertaining) thoughts about forgiving, click here.

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Revival requires night vision

Posted on September 7, 2023 by Steve Simms

It’s time for churches to train and release everyone in the congregation to actively listen to and obey, “the presence of Jesus in the people of God for the sake of the world.” This is what it will take to make church a “house of prayer” again.

Before the institutional church pushed aside Christ’s Spirit-led town hall meeting (known as “ekklesia” in Greek) and with the help of Roman Emperor Constantine became the official religious establishment of the empire, gatherings of the body of Christ frequently assembled according to 1 Corinthians 14:26. Those meetings were interactive and allowed anyone present to speak. Overseers in the ekklesia prayerfully watched over the gathering to keep the assembly under the direct control, active Headship, and Divine intervention of the risen Jesus in their midst.

A key to restoring Christ’s ekklesia is for God’s people to raise “their voices together in prayer.” Corporate prayer where everyone present is free to pray out loud as led by the Spirit, is essential. We must move beyond merely repeating memorized words or reading words from a program or listening to a professional pray and speak. It’s time to train and release all the people in a congregation to individually pray out loud as prompted by God’s Spirit and to openly pour out their heart to Him!

Christ doesn’t enter a Christian’s heart so he can be locked down in there. He enters so He can pour out His presence from there. Hearts that are closed down and hiding never know the warmth of staying connected heart-to-heart with the risen Jesus and His followers.

The greatest problem in churches and in present-day Christianity is shut down hearts that hide behind programmed religion. If you are a Christian, the people you know and the people you go to church with need to see Christ alive in you, but if you won’t open wide your heart, they won’t. Christ isn’t in Christians so He can hide behind our shut down hearts. Humbly open your heart to people and let Jesus shine!

The body of Christ should meet together to demonstrate the presence of Jesus, not just to hear a talk about Him. If Christians would open their hearts to one another and let Christ in them come flowing out, they’d experience awe and amazement.

We have enough descriptions and depictions of Jesus but we’re greatly lacking in actual demonstrations of His presence and power. Without the night vision that comes from God’s gift of discernment, Christians will surrender to the darkness of demons and abandon spiritual warfare.

Jesus depictions
Or descriptions
Can’t compare with
Jesus demonstrations!

Inspired by Matthew 24:
During these dark days
We need night vision,
Discernment from God
So that we can see
Beyond deception.
“Watch out that no one
Deceives you.” –Jesus

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An American germophobic in India

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
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India scared me. Everywhere I looked I saw germs. (Well, I didn’t actually see them, but I knew they were there, lurking about and ready to pounce on me in a moment of carelessness.) For 3 months I was living in a church guest room, teaching in a Bible school, and having my meals with amazing people — the pastor and his family. But, oh the germs!

On one hand it’s customary in India to use your fingers and a bit of water from a tiny bowl instead of toilet paper. On the other hand, they use their other hand like a fork and give new meaning to the phrase, “finger licking good.” I never knew which hand to shake when I met new people.

The streets in the big city where I was, were often populated with cows and pigs wandering about and doing their business on the roads and dusty walking lanes. Once I walked into the church kitchen and the cook was chopping vegetables on the kitchen floor that would soon be served to me. At meals my hosts would frequently pick up some food with their hands and put it on my plate. Hands down, that was scary to a germophobe like me.

My stomach was messed up for the entire three months, so I know that at least a few germs found a way to my gut. (I was losing weight the entire time and literally thought that I might die there.) But that experience changed my life.

The young adults in the Bible school were some of the most passionate and committed Christ-followers I have ever met. They all prayed three times every day for an hour each time. Those three hours always filled me with awe and amazement as people cried out to Jesus to bring a Christ-centered awakening to their families, their cities, and their country.

After graduation the students were sent to a town or village in India that had never had a Christian church. There they would start a church and a school and demonstrate the love of Jesus to the community. Often, they were rejected, even violently. One of my students was stoned to death by hostile residents at the well in his new community. He laid down his life in love. His story put my fear of germs in perspective.

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I choose to beware of the Chosen series . . .

Posted on September 5, 2023 by Steve Simms

The Bible begins with creation and the Creator is the eternal, almighty God. However, there is a religion that disguises itself as Christian but hides the fact that it doesn’t believe that God is the Creator. That religion, Mormonism, is strongly involved in the production of the Chosen. Dallas Jenkins openly states that Mormons and Christians believe in the same Jesus, but that’s not factual.

Mormonism believes that their god did not create the heavens and the earth. Their god, the god of planet earth only, is an ordinary man who was promoted to the status of being the god of earth. They believe that the billions of planets around the universe either have their own god or will one day get a god. The god of each planet is (or will be) an ordinary man who has been promoted to godship.

Mormons believe that their Jesus is the physical son of the god of planet earth — that he was conceived sexually. They clearly don’t believe that Jesus is the Creator of all that exists and who was conceived by the Holy Spirit to become a human being. Thus, they believe in a radically different Jesus than Christians do.

The fact that there are several videos of Dallas Jenkins, the producer of the Chosen, making the deceptive statement that Mormons and Christians believe in the same Jesus is troublesome. It should be a major warning about the Chosen’s inaccuracy (false stories being told about Jesus) and mistaken theology (a false definition of who Jesus is).

We need to heed the warning of the true Jesus — Immanuel, “God with us,” the Creator in human flesh — and like He said: “Beware of false prophets.” When “another Jesus,” is being promoted, we need to avoid that trap no matter how entertaining and inspirational it may be.

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Home should look (and be) safe and secure.

Posted on September 5, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What does your ideal home look like?
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To me the ideal home is a place that’s:

  • Free from anger, hostility, unforgiveness, hatred, and bitterness.
  • Full of kindness, humility, compassion, and caring.
  • Overflowing with peace, joy, hope, and understanding.
  • A man and a woman bound together by never-ending love in a marriage of radical faithfulness and commitment to each other.
  • Children who are lovingly treasured, guided, listened to, and disciplined by their parents.
  • Warm, friendly, and welcoming to all who come by.
  • Never heard the word “divorce.”

The ideal home is supernatural. It is beyond mere human ability and is never fully achieved, but it’s a vision that burns deep in my heart.

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