A rock-hard heart is stone faced.

Posted on April 28, 2023 by Steve Simms

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.

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The deception of self-focus

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Steve Simms

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.

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Being Spirit-led to soar beyond religious legalism

Posted on April 26, 2023 by Steve Simms

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. Perhaps that’s because church is too often like hospice care. It tries to keep Christians religiously comfortable until they die.

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Christ-saturated or religiously dominated?

Posted on April 25, 2023 by Steve Simms

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.

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Seeing beyond the spin

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Steve Simms

Wherever there is spin, sight is blurred. Christians are called to look for truth without spinning facts to fit our opinions. My interpretation of a fact isn’t a fact. It’s only my opinion, not ultimate truth.

To repent is to re-view life from God’s perspective. God in His kindness shines His light in human hearts. His glorious light causes us to reframe, refocus, rethink, and renew how we view and interpret our daily life. Then we begin to see life from God’s perspective through the beautiful characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23.)

If we reject or resist God’s light and refuse to see, we stay stuck in the fleshly confines and confusion our own self-based perspective. Our pride, feelings, and desires make it difficult to face the reality that disagrees with them.

The mission of a Christian is to actively demonstrate heart-felt love for God and for people through both words and actions. Instead of “giving a lesson” or “teaching a class” or “bringing the message,” perhaps it’s time to demonstrate Jesus’ presence!

Whenever life seems ordinary and you’re feeling bored, connect heart-to-heart with the living Jesus and you’ll have more excitement than you can imagine. I love to see the glow of joy on the faces of people spontaneously pouring out their heart as they worship Jesus with great gratitude and humility.

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Shrink wrapped Christianity is very confining.

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Steve Simms

When Christianity is shrink wrapped in religious plastic and boxed up like an Amazon package, it’s not very effective. We need to open it up so God’s Spirit can take control. To be spiritually alive is to be responsive to and led by the inner promptings of God’s Spirit — Jesus Christ living and working in you.

Too many Christians are trapped by religious loyalties, traditions, hierarchies, and programs that keep them from being freely Spirit-led. It’s very rare to find a church service that allows people to be free to follow the Spirit. When the institutional church institutionalized Christianity it made Christians dependent on a religious institution instead of on the presence and power of the living Christ.

Being Spirit-led has nothing to do with sermon-hearing. It’s about daily hearing and obeying the risen Jesus. Nothing can compare to the Spirit’s rivers of living water are rushing through my soul.

Some people say that church is a hospital. To me it’s more of a nursing home. A hospital heals and releases people. A nursing home coddles to their frailty and rarely lets them go.

The purpose of a hospital is to get people healthy and released to freely function without institutional help. The purpose of a nursing home is to keep people institutionalized and to maintain the status quo until they die. Which one do you think best describes the contemporary church?

If Christians have ever needed to be led by God’s Spirit it’s now! You can only be led by “Christ in you” if you’re willing to focus intently on Him and follow Him. The Good News of the kingdom of God is that King Jesus is alive, present, and active in this world and invites whosoever will to surrender to His literal Headship and obey His direct authority in day-to-day life.

To focus on self is to be out of focus. Self-love and self-forgiveness are self-focused, but receiving God’s love and forgiveness is Christ-focused. I can forgive myself a million times, but until I have God’s forgiveness, I’m still guilty. (See 1 John 1:9.) HIs forgiveness frees me from religious shrink wrap!

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Can we be honest about discrimination against skin-color and pre-natal status?

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Steve Simms

Both abortion and slavery are based on the false claim of ownership of another human life. Much of the disrespect for human life in America that was once based on skin color has now shifted to be based on pre-natal status. Whether based on skin-color or pre-natal status, disrespect for human life is morally wrong.

Current events are demonstrating that when our society is so cold that we can deny the humanity of a child in the womb, we have the capacity to disrespect the humanity of anyone. Human life is too incredibly amazing to be disrespected in the womb or anywhere else!

The womb is no longer a safe place for human life. When life is devalued in the womb it’s devalued everywhere. Legal or illegal, the killing of an unborn baby is cruel.

Legislation can’t change a hardened heart, but the radical act of kindly speaking truth while humbly loving your enemies can. America needs a heart change!

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Being craving controlled is no fun!

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Steve Simms

A desire-driven lifestyle is dominated by self-focus. People who are dictated by self-focused desires are never satisfied. If you won’t control your cravings, your cravings will control you.

Desire-driven decisions demonstrate a lack of self-control. When people allow themselves to be controlled by cravings, they punish themselves by making pain-producing choices. If you won’t put some brakes on your desires, they will eventually break you.

Desire-driven decisions like to detour around wisdom. When your craving for self-gratification is greater than your hunger and thirst for righteousness, you’ll make unwise rebellious choices.

Human beings weren’t created to be cravings-controlled puppets. People have the right to follow self-focused cravings, but they don’t have the right to demand that you approve of their choices.

Desire-driven Christianity avoids being Spirit-led. Craving-controlled people have lost their freedom. The living Jesus can restore it! Christ-followers are called to be led by the Spirit, not controlled by cravings. See Romans 8:14.

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If you want to be with Jesus in Heaven, why wait?

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Steve Simms

If you want to be with Jesus in Heaven, why wait? Begin to openly interact with and obey Him now, right where you are.

When you love a person you don’t spend your time studying and analyzing them and listening to talks about them. You openly interact with them heart to heart. It’s time for Christians to love Jesus like that!

I’d like to take a selfie with the risen Jesus, but I can’t. That’s because He’s invisible and I hang out with Him in my heart.

Christians are always wanting a Bible formula or technique to make to Christianity easier. But there’s no formula; just this: “As many as are led by the Spirit are the children of God.”

Don’t be a spectator Christian! Spectator Christianity is a convenient way for Christians who are afraid of God’s light to feel better about themselves.

The job of pastor too often makes Christianity a mere spectator event. Instead of being a person whose primary job description is to compassionately serve and disciple people heart to heart, being a pastor has become a job to plan, control, and then lecture during a church service.

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Jesus is the Good News!

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Steve Simms

Bad news abounds as demons disturb our inner peace and destroy our mental health by tormenting us with temptations, accusations, worries, and fears all around us and within us. Education, psychology, technology, religion, politics, medication, meditation, science, self-help, social engineering, and even money have all demonstrated that they have no power to cleanse and purify the human heart.

Is there any good news anywhere to give us hope that we as hardened insensitive self-focused individuals and as a wicked and corrupt generation can be brought to sanity? Yes! There is an invisible way of escape that eye can’t see or ear can’t hear but is revealed within the heart and can be followed to peace and purity. Jesus, the Creator who became a man is the glorious Good News who can continually roll through your soul making you awash with His presence and power so that you are ever renewed. Get online with Him and forever zoom with His Spirit!

Hands full of technology and hearts full of hardness produce a society full of confusion, conflict, and chaos. Whenever you feel downcast let the risen Jesus give you an upgrade. Too many Christians are a dead limb instead of a living branch.

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