Self-dependency eventually leads to despondency

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Steve Simms

When you depend on temporary situations for happiness your happiness soon departs. Self-dependency will also eventually let you down and lead to despondency. It’s like your shadow. When the dark night comes self-dependency dissipates.

I’ve been deceived and disappointed too many times to depend any longer on my own desires, feelings, or opinions. If you’re looking for a solid foundation for your life, don’t depend on yourself. Trust in and rely on God. If you depend on anything but God, you can depend on being disappointed.

Faith means to be God-dependent–to trust in and rely on Him rather than self. The more I depend on His inspiration, the more I’m inspired.

Depend on yourself and you’ll be let down into discouragement. Depend on the risen Jesus and you’ll be lifted up into inner peace. Your feelings, desires, and opinions will be unreliable as long as your heart is out of focus. Depending on God means that you free to depend less on yourself and on other people.

No human is totally dependable. I had to look higher than humanity to find Someone I can trust to never let me down. My life has been changed, directed, and protected by God’s intervention so many times that I’ve learned to depend on Him.

Gather with Jesus
And a few friends,
Then depend on Him
And follow His lead.

Open churches without open hearts don’t depend on the Lord. What’s controlled from a stage is staged. What flows from hearts touched by the presence of Jesus is genuine. Hearing lectures about your friend would be a poor substitute for spending time together. Jesus is my Friend. I want to interact with and be dependent on Him, not to hear talks about Him.

Church teaches us information about Jesus, but until we learn to daily depend on and rely on Jesus, that info isn’t very helpful. Relying on a church service to keep you close to God is like trusting in a food TV show to keep you well fed. Church does us a disservice when it trains people to listen to a weekly lecture about God, but not to daily lean on and rely on Him.

Church says to depend on a solitary preacher for Christian guidance, but the Bible declares, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Let’s go beyond depending on religion. Let’s actively help each other depend on the living Jesus. If Christians relied as much on “Christ in you” as we do on a preacher in a pulpit, spiritual awakening would become our continuous condition.

Organization and programming prevent revival. God doesn’t work according to human specifications. Dare to tear up the program and depend on God’s Spirit instead.

Limiting church to some stage led songs and a one-man sermon greatly restricts what God can do. Jesus said, “Follow Me.” He never said, “Listen to a weekly talk about Me.”

Now is the time
To depend on God to do
What He wants to
In and through you.

You can depend on this: Christianity isn’t about religious organizations and religious belief systems. It’s about a personal relationship with the risen Jesus. Let every step you take be a walk with the risen Jesus carefully following His lead.

Now is the time to depend on the risen Jesus! We’re living in God’s now timing. The time to trust in and depend on the living God is always now. No matter our circumstances, in spite of our feelings, desires, pain, or confusion, and regardless of apparent delays, those who belong to Jesus can be supernaturally assured that God will never leave us or forsake us; that Christ in us is the hope of glory, and that the Holy Spirit is the Comforter abiding within us and dynamically empowering us with strength and faith — “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Instead of being
Visibly amazed
At the presence
Of Jesus
And dependent on Him,
Church has trained
Christians to sit
And be dazed
By sermon fatigue.
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Good fear produces good vibes . . .

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Steve Simms

The fear of the Lord isn’t about dodging lightning bolts. It’s about letting your heart be overwhelmed by His glorious light. Too many people want God’s approval, but the fear of the Lord makes us realize that what we really need is His mercy and forgiveness. Embracing the fear of the Lord fills you with His stupefying love that casts out the fears that have been tormenting you.

Our society doesn’t need more church attendance. We need more people greatly impacted by the fear of the Lord. Hiding and pretending you have nothing to fear from God is cruelly self-deceptive. Hope comes by surrendering to His love and mercy.

The fear of the Lord is like the fear of meeting a celebrity you admire. It’s the awe you feel when you open your heart to God’s greatness. It’s like spending time interacting with a human hero you greatly admire. You overflow with respect and awe. The fear of the Lord is the good and healthy fear that calls us to flee our bondage and to fully surrender to His love.

Without the fear of the Lord, human beings are easily influenced and ensnared by evil. The fear of the Lord frees us from the extremes of open rebellion and self-righteous religion so we can find true peace with God.

We say we want to be loved, but receiving intense love is scary because it will strongly bind us to someone. We can run or surrender. Face the fear of the Lord and embrace God’s love!

The closer I get to God’s holiness the more I sense a wholesome respect, awe, and fear for Him and the more I want His mercy. The justice of God is frightening. It means that the judgment I’ve earned must be carried out. I’m undone that Christ bore my judgment.

The fear of the Lord is like the fear you feel when truth that you’re uncomfortable with and/or ashamed of is exposed. It’s the fear of God’s complete honesty. Without the fear of the Lord, we humans try to rationalize away our great need for mercy, forgiveness, and deliverance.

The fear of the Lord is to be deeply moved by His majesty, shaken by His splendor, and gripped by His greatness. It’s the awareness that there’s nowhere to hide. God is truth and light. He knows and sees everything about you. The fear of the Lord shows us that it’s useless to run from Him and invites us to surrender our rebellion to His mercy and grace.

The fear of the Lord is the awareness of accountability–the knowledge that truth, light, and justice will ultimately prevail. It makes us conscious of His holiness and our sinfulness. It reveals out great need to receive His love, mercy, and forgiveness.

The most courageous people in the world are those who have surrendered to the fear of the Lord. They fear nothing else.

Christians today focus too much on church mechanics and not enough Holy Spirit dynamics and the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord helps us realize that earth has already been invaded by God incarnate (Jesus) and is currently being colonized by the kingdom of God. Jesus told his disciples “The kingdom of God is within you.” Jesus tells us to make seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness our number one priority in life! Our life on earth is supposed to be about surrendering to the living God and letting Him bring us from glory to glory into ever greater obedience to His direct inner rule, authority, and dominion.

God wants to overflow you with so much inspiration from within you that you don’t feel the need to depend on outward inspiration. If you’re not reading the Bible every day with an open heart and praying, going to church can easily become a mere religious exercise.

To preach without passion, excitement, and enthusiasm is to disrespect history’s greatest news! If a preacher isn’t deeply moved and personally stirred by what he’s preaching the congregation won’t be either. I’ve found few churches that make people who are continuously and visibly thrilled about Jesus feel welcome.

When Chistianity
Was ritualized
And systematized
It was lobotomized
And cut off
From the direct
Control of Christ
It’s living Head.

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God always treats me better than I deserve

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Steve Simms

My life is full
Of gifts from God
That I didn’t earn
And I don’t deserve.

My heart often fills up with undeserved joy. I owe God everything. I don’t deserve any blessing that He has given me. The more clearly I see my own heart, the more I’m aware that God treats me far better than I deserve.

I trust in God’s mercy, not my merit. I’m unworthy and underserving. I’m not good enough. I don’t measure up to God’s standards.

No one earns or deserves God’s love. He freely gives it. The nature of love is undeserved. True love is given, never earned or coerced. It takes courage, insight, and humility to realize that God treats you better than you deserve.

Only undeserving people can receive forgiveness, mercy, and grace. No one has a right to those things. Believing that we’re entitled makes us feel cheated. Believing that we’re undeserving make us feel grateful. Instead of proudly trying to earn God’s approval, humbly bow down and receive His mercy and forgiveness.

To deserve anything, you must measure up to it. To receive grace, you must be unworthy of it. We cannot be grateful to God or to other people for the things that we falsely believe we’ve accomplished totally on our own.

Think about this: No matter how much you’ve disgraced God, He continues to offer you the opportunity to receive his forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

No one can ever earn or deserve your forgiveness or God’s. Forgiveness is a gift that’s freely given.

Lord, help me
To see
That the things
I think I’ve earned
Are really
Your undeserved
Gifts to me.

When we try
To use muscle
To overcome
Life’s hustle bustle
We rustle up
More and more stress
And wind up in
An even bigger tussle.
The best way
To reduce stress
Is to surrender,
To lay down our mess,
And to learn
To daily experience
God’s peaceful rest
So that we can
Let the wind
Of God’s Spirit
Continually unwind
Our tangled mind
And troubled heart.

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Beyond Christmas to Christ in you

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Steve Simms

Jesus was born
In Bethlehem
But until I let Him
Live in me
I couldn’t see
His glorious reality!

Religious ceremony
And sanctimony
Are no substitute
For a personal testimony
About how Jesus
Became real in your life.

Emmanuel, God with us.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Without heart surrender
To the living Jesus
Christmas celebration
Becomes mere sentimental
Ornamentation.

Christ in the manger was step one but let Christmas continue until Christ is living in you and transforming you with His glory. To shift your focus to the Light of Christ keep your attention on the living Jesus and let His presence ever consume you. (Listen to the song, “Nothing Else” by Rick Pino.)

Christmas is seasonal. Christ in you should never be tied to a season!

Jesus presents His presence and offers to take up residence in and to direct the present moment of those who will perceive, receive, and obey Him. From the Christmas events to the Cross and Resurrection, the four Gospels are full of Christ encounters. Don’t just read them to learn. Read them to discern and to encounter the living Jesus. Christ in the manger was step one but let Christmas continue until Christ is living in you and daily transforming you with His glory.

Posted in blogs about Christmas, Christ in Christmas, Christian poetry, Christmas, Christmas cheer, Christmas greeting, Christmas season, poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Remembrance or experience? (Does Advent add up?)

Posted on December 10, 2022 by Steve Simms

Remembering Jesus in the past and experiencing Him in the present are both vital to true Christianity. Jesus told His disciples that He would be in them and remain in them, but He also told them to remember Him. Why? We need to remember His life in the flesh so that we aren’t misled about who He is. Yet, we also need to continually experience His presence in our daily lives so that we’re empowered to hear and obey Him.

Advent services show that churches are good at remembering Jesus in the past. Many churches prominently display these words: “This do in remembrance of Me.” However, churches shy away from encouraging and empowering people to experience and obey Jesus in worship services and in their daily lives.

It’s fine to celebrate
Jesus’ birth in the past
And to look forward to
His coming in the future
But let’s also wake up to
His presence in the present!

Remembrance
Of Jesus
Without the experience
Of His presence
In daily life
Is incomplete!

I remember Jesus when I read the Gospels (or the Christmas story). I experience Him when I freely surrender my will to His. Remembering Jesus’ physical life in the past should never be an excuse for ignoring His presence in the now!

Advent season? If Christ is with us, we don’t need to prepare for His arrival. We need to wake up to His presence.

True Christianity isn’t seasonal. It causes people to focus on and interact with the presence of the living Jesus 24/7/365!

People don’t prepare for the arrival of a guest who’s staying in their home. They interact with Him. Christ is already present! Church has trained us to view Jesus through ritualized and formalized eyes so that now we don’t realize His glory in daily life.

Jesus’ birth was the never-ending beginning of God with us. You don’t have to find Him in Bethlehem. He’ll meet you where you are.

Advent is a great time to awaken to Christ’s always abiding with us. His radiance remains throughout the years to reside in us, revive us, and restore us. Its efficacy has not been overcome! Keep Christ’s eternal light ever in your sight!

Remembering the birth of Christ should be a wake-up call, not a snooze button! At Christmas Jesus’ birth is seen as sweet but that’s not how King Herod and the people of Jerusalem saw it. They were “disturbed!” True grace ignores your “Do Not Disturb” sign and confronts you with truth.

When Jesus came
And comes again
Are both beyond
My experience.
But His presence now–
Wow! Wow! Wow!–
Somehow
Fills
And thrills
My heart
With His glory!

Gratitude,
Gratitude,
Re-gratitude
Until it becomes
An ongoing cycle
In your heart
And in your mind.

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Be a Spirit-led Christian not a snooze-controlled one

Posted on December 10, 2022 by Steve Simms

If church would be as careful not to offend God as not to offend attendees, there would be massive spiritual awakening. When church sends people home after a sermon without facilitating heart-to-heart connection and sharing among them, it encourages them to be Lone Ranger Christians. Unless you let Jesus capture your consciousness you’ll drift into distraction.

Here’s the deal:
Too many Christians
Are asleep
To the thrill
Of Jesus
Being real!

Be Spirit-led
Not a spiritual
Sleepy head
Wanting to be
Spoon fed
By a preacher.

To see love for Jesus
As merely sacramental
Makes it incidental,
Tied to holy places
Where we go to touch
Religious bases.
Sunday ceremony
Too often replaces
Passionate discipleship
In daily life.

We too often
Get caught up
In the pageantry
And religious gadgetry
Of formalized Christianity
And miss the reality
Of His daily presence.

Christians are called to walk in the Spirit, not to walk in our sleep. Those who settle in and comfortably set their life on mindless cruise control lose their passion for Jesus and snooze away. Hearing a weekly talk about alarm clocks won’t wake you up. You have to actually hear and respond to the alarm itself! The Holy Spirit and the Bible are God’s alarm clock.

When you get a wake-up call from God it’s best if you don’t get irritated and hit the snooze button. God doesn’t give wake-up calls so that you can deal with them and quickly move back into your comfort zone, but so that you can seriously reorient your life to His will. Wake up to consciousness of your conscience and to continual awareness of God’s presence.

Too often church is like the lullaby of a white noise machine making soft soothing sounds that facilitate sleep. When church shifted from Spirit-led doing to passive sermon-hearing it settled in for a looooooooong winter’s night. It’s wakeup time! Perhaps preaching needs to be an attention-grabbing, alarm-sounding wake-up call instead of a nice religious lullaby.

After decades of church attendance and careful observation, I’ve come to the conclusion that sermons are much more sleep inducing than disciple producing. Be a Spirit-led Christian not a snooze-controlled one. Wakeup to the reality of Jesus! Daily experience the thrill of His presence!

Lord, help me be
Spiritually awake,
Surrendered to Jesus
And not be a religious fake.

Have you taken
The time to awaken
Your heart to Jesus?
Have you shaken
Off spiritual slumber?

An effective wake-up call must be rousing and uncomfortable. Until we’re willing to disturb the comfortable, dry bones will sleep.

Jesus-encounter-meetings where Christ-followers gather to interact with and obey Jesus are indescribably amazing! Try one!

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If you don’t want to wake up, don’t obey 2 Chronicles 7:14

Posted on December 9, 2022 by Steve Simms

God has much more of His presence and power that He wants to give you right now. All that’s required is that you surrender to His will and continually cry out for His help.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God states conditions for spiritual awakening. It isn’t addressed to individuals. It’s something God’s people are called to do when we meet together: 1) Humble ourselves, 2) Pray, 3) Seek God’s face, and 4) Turn from our wicked ways.

None of that involves passively listening to a sermon. A great way to begin to obey that verse is to gather with Christians to spontaneously and humbly walk in the light together by testifying, quoting Scriptures, praying, sharing revelations, confessing, repenting, and singing together as prompted by the Spirit while absorbed in the adoration of the risen Jesus. See 1 Corinthians 14:26.

Unfortunately, instead of walking in the light together, church is often a safe spot for Christians to be religious Lone Rangers. It has become a place where people can hide from spiritual interaction and personal accountability.

Darkness is inviting and alluring because it gives us a false sense of isolation from the rebellion, brokenness, and corruption in our heart. Darkness empowers us to feel like we aren’t that bad and to sincerely say and believe that “I’m a good person,” when the Bible clearly states that “There is none righteous, no not one.”

It’s only by coming into God’s light with other people and humbly uncovering the truth about who we really are deep down inside that we begin to fully embrace grace, mercy, forgiveness, healing, and deliverance. We need to abide (24/7/365) in God’s light, not to hide in the cover of night!

When we stop being hungry and passionate for a deeper experience with God, we settle for less than He wants to give us. When we think we don’t need God and that we don’t need to spiritually connect with other Christ-followers then we don’t pursue God and instead settle into religious complacency.

Ego makes grace a no-go. It’s a grace rejector. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Whether consciously or unconsciously, when you disconnect from God, you reject or neglect His appeals to interact heart-to-heart with Him and with other believers. If your relationship with Jesus is bland and routine. then you’re not seeking first the kingdom of God and walking in the Light with Him and with others in the body of Christ.

So how can we more effectively live out 2 Chronicles 2:14? Let’s meet together to:

  1. Embrace humility. Instead of protecting our pride, let’s openly and honestly humble ourselves in front of each other by obeying God’s Spirit no matter how embarrassing it may seem to be.
  2. Pray. Praying is not a spectator sport. The preacher can’t do your praying for you. Everyone needs to be free to pray aloud and to pour their heart out to God openly in the congregation. The Bible calls for “fervent” prayer. Let’s embrace and encourage that kind of heart-felt passionate praying when we meet together.
  3. Seek God’s face. When we meet, we need to “draw near to God,” not to keep our distance. Let’s be completely honest with God, with ourselves, and with each other as we actively and intently pursue intimacy with the living God. When we meet together let’s be attentive to and courageously obey His inner promptings.
  4. Turn from our wicked ways. The New Testament calls the turning away from sin repentance and confession. It says: “Confess your sins to one another.” Let’s be brave enough to actually do that when we gather in Jesus’ name. If you don’t think you have any sins that you should openly confess, sincerely ask God to show you anywhere that you’re off track. When He does walk in the light you just received and openly confess.
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Posted in Bible verses, great awakening, revival, spiritual awakening, wake up, wake-up call | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nodding heads aren’t a sign of spiritual awakening!

Posted on December 8, 2022 by Steve Simms

It’s sad that in most churches spontaneous sleeping is permitted, but spontaneous testifying about the living Jesus isn’t. Perhaps we’ve cultivated the wrong kind of spontaneity. How many nodding heads does it take before we realize that church is putting people to sleep?

People today are looking for
Heart-felt authenticity,
Not for religious passivity.

Church needs to go from glory to glory, not from sermon to sermon. Let’s take off our dark Son-glasses so we can see Jesus clearly

A church where the same person speaks each week while everybody else is kept quiet is like a house with only one electrical outlet. (Now that’s shocking!) God uses church the way it is but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t want it to be much more effective at spreading His power and presence.

It’s time to demonstrate
The reality of Jesus
Not to elaborate
About Him.

Church attendance isn’t the cure for Lone Ranger Christians. Many church attendees refuse to connect heart-to-heart with others. Their Lone Ranger mask tells everyone around them to leave them alone.

On Sunday morning churches count their sheep and then quite often make them sleepy. People joke about people sleeping in church. That’s double boredom–being so bored that you need to be entertained by people who are asleep.

We need congregations
Full of activated believers,
Not weighed down
With passive receivers.

When Christians gather to all obey the Spirit’s inner promptings, everybody present can see Jesus working thru various people. We had a guest once who flattened and blocked all but one of the water outlets on our shower head leaving us with a single trickle. That’s how I feel in church. Make church ekklesia again!

Faith’s not a cool long-distance relationship with a formalized Jesus. It’s a passionate relationship with the here-and-now Jesus.

When church tells folks
To listen and not
Make a peep
They put the sheep
To sleep.

When people directly encounter the risen Jesus, their body language doesn’t give the sound of silent boredom. They are roused! If a wake-up call is comfortable, you’ll sleep right thru it. For church to become a wake-up call it must become uncomfortable!

Church needs to cultivate
Direct encounter with Jesus
Not just try to motivate
People to be religious.

When church is a spiritual mattress Christians snooze. What’s your spiritual “Sleep Number”?

It takes more than sermons to rouse a deaf church. Ears that won’t spiritually hear need to see Christ demonstrated in actions. Jesus said to hear what the Spirit says to the body of Christ. Unless we hear God’s Spirit, the words of a preacher are powerless.

By being passive
In their church seat
Christians too often sit
And accept defeat.

Church should be a gathering where people open up and support each other, not a place where they’re silenced by religious tradition. Revival happens when Christians awaken to the glory of God. Hearing sermons isn’t the hope of glory; “Christ in you,” is! If sermon-hearing brought revival, churches would thrive in the thrill of God’s glory every Sunday. Do they?

Christians need to gather
To help each other
Experience God’s spiritual fire
Not to be made comfortable
With our own desire.

Shepherds cultivate an environment where sheep can grow strong and healthy. They don’t lecture them. (Pastors should be shepherds.) One moment of experiencing the glory of God will teach a Christ-follower more than years of sermon-hearing. Instead of tickling our ears, church should thrill our heart with the presence, splendor, and majesty of the risen Jesus.

Church too often
Pampers people’s passivity
Instead of stirring up
Their spiritual intensity.

Communion is heart-to-heart interaction with the living Jesus. It’s so much more than a tiny bit of bread and wine (or juice). Eucharist (the ceremony of “the Lord’s Supper”) without encountering the glory of God becomes a mere religious exercise.

Religious hearts
Unkindled by
The presence
Of Christ,
Cold and even frozen,
Are they really
The chosen?

Sleeping Christians living in a dying culture put their trust in politics more than in the risen Jesus. It’s not enough to get out the vote. We need to get out of our comfort zone to read and obey what God wrote!

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Posted in Christian spirituality, church attendance, church format, revival, spiritual awakening, testifying in church | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

For revival be Jesus-friendly (not seeker-friendly or Jesus-distancing)

Posted on December 7, 2022 by Steve Simms

The greatest hindrance to Christian revival and spiritual awakening is Jesus-distancing. If you’re often unaware of the presence and power of Jesus, you’ve been Jesus-distancing. Jesus-distancers do all they can to dodge Jesus but Jesus said, “Come unto Me,” not “Keep your distance.”

Many church attendees actively practice Jesus-distancing during the church service. You can see it in their body language. Jesus-distancers prefer religious sentimentality instead of Spirit-led intimacy with Jesus.

Too many churches are more seeker-friendly than Jesus-friendly. Jesus-friendly churches make lots of room for the risen Jesus to demonstrate his power and presence in their midst. They allow the risen Jesus to frequently interrupt and redirect their meetings.

They are eager to give the living Jesus full and direct control of their worship services. When you enter a Jesus-friendly church meeting you sense His awesome presence and power. Jesus-distancers try to avoid Jesus-friendly churches.

Jesus-distancing prevents God’s Spirit from spreading. Still, too many Christians regularly practice Jesus-distancing. We say we love Jesus, but day by day we keep our heart far from Him. The more we structure and formalize our faith the more we embrace Jesus-distancing.

Jesus-distancing isn’t measured by feet (or by meters) but by the hardness of your heart. Many of the people who practice Jesus-distancing like to mask their hard heart and to pretend to praise Him. They try to look religious while having minimal contact with the risen Jesus.

Jesus-distancing churches have sermons and ceremonies about Jesus, but they don’t let Him take direct control of their Sunday morning worship service. Programming a church service and allowing only the pastor to speak is a very effective way to practice Jesus-distancing.

Too many pastors feel entitled to dominate a church service instead of empowering the congregation to obey God’s Spirit. Christian leaders should hide behind the risen Jesus, not step in front of Him.

To experience the glory of Spirit-led awakening, we don’t have to abandon church, but we do need to overcome Jesus-distancing and to surrender full control of the meetings to the risen Jesus. My heart longs to see churches open up their meetings to the presence and control of God’s Spirit.

Life’s distractions and temptations demand our attention and tend to steer us away from focusing on the presence and glory of Jesus. Active, willful, and/or unconfessed sin is another cause of Jesus-distancing.

The harder your heart the easier it is to Jesus-distance and to let your heart grow even harder. If you want to rebel against something, rebel against Jesus-distancing by always hanging tightly with Him.

Trying to keep the risen Jesus in the past or in the future is a form of Jesus-distancing. If you’re Jesus-distancing in your heart it doesn’t matter how much you do religious things and try to look coolly churchy.

“We have seen His glory.” John wrote his Gospel in the past tense. The King is already among us! Emmanuel–God with us. When we’re unaware of Jesus’ daily presence and glory in our lives, we are somehow overlooking His arrival on planet earth, His invitation for us to abide in Him, and His promise: “Lo, I am with you always.” Even when we can’t see or sense a glimmer of hope, this truth remains steadfast: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

The body of Christ needs courageous leaders who will cultivate and oversee gatherings where people can be free to follow and obey the promptings of God’s Spirit. If Christian leaders would cultivate a Spirit-led environment and not dominate the proceedings, God’s Spirit would activate and empower ordinary people to speak up. Be Jesus-friendly, not Jesus-distancing.

Your self-identity isn’t an independent entity. It’s only your opinion of who you are. Your Creator knows who you are better than you do. Get close to Jesus and learn who you really are!

The more you avoid
The risen Jesus
The greater grows
The aching void
In your heart.

Too often we build our lives
In rooms
Of insignificance
And miss
The significance
Of wonder and awe.

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Posted in experiencing Jesus, God seeker, hearing the Spirit, Holy Spirit flow, Jesus quotes, obeying the Spirit, seeker-church, Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, Spirit-led church | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Lazyanity”–the passive & comfortable Christianity

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Steve Simms

“Lazyanity” falsely believes that Christians stay afloat in life’s raging waves of temptation and corruption without treading water. Jesus is everywhere but instead of seeking and embracing demonstrations of His presence “lazyanity” settles into ceremony and routine.

True grace makes us hunger and thirst for righteousness. “Lazyanity” causes us passively sit in false security and religious pride. “Comfortable Christianity” is a polite way to say “lazyanity.”

“Lazyanity” is spectator-friendly Christianity but it’s not friendly to people who passionately “seek first the kingdom of God.” “Lazyanity” unintentionally bores people with the most glorious reality in the universe–“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Catherine Booth, cofounder of The Salvation Army, didn’t like “lazyanity.” In her book “Aggressive Christianity” she wrote: “Rise up on the strength of God and resolve to conquer.”

When church becomes mere routine it nestles into “lazyanity.” When Christianity morphed into “lazyanity,” the Bible’s Spirit-led ekklesia morphed into the passivity of program-led church.

It’s free
To be
A church attendee
To listen
To a lesson
Each week
And not make a peep.

The preacher speaks
But the congregation
Makes the sound of silence.

Perhaps Christians don’t need one person to do all the talking when they gather for worship. Maybe they could be a support group instead of an audience.

People of the Spirit are caught up in & carried along by God’s Spirit, not their own desires.

My desires to be lazy are deterrents to discipleship. I want the risen Jesus, not my desires, to direct my daily life and determine my destiny.

Jesus is often lazily
Unrecognized,
Overlooked
And hidden
By what we call
Ordinary circumstances,
Random occurrences,
Or mere coincidences.
Lift your gaze
Beyond life’s haze.
Look closer
And really see
How you’re surrounded
By His awesome
Love and mystery.

Too many Christians
Are being led
By the thoughts
Swirling in their head
And being fed
By their own desires,
But instead
They need to be led
And fed
By Jesus,
The living Head
Of His true followers.

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