Half-hearted Christianity won’t make you whole

Posted on September 2, 2022 by Steve Simms

Your heart is a life-valve. Always keep it open so that the life of Jesus can continually flow through you. If you won’t put your whole heart into following and obeying the risen Jesus, you’re only going through the motions of Christianity. Religious excuses are a declaration that you’re not following Jesus wholeheartedly.

Wholehearted Christianity isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a lifestyle of passionately pursuing the living Jesus every single day. Wholehearted Christian living is to keep the valve of your heart wide-open to the risen Jesus. Wholeheartedness requires your whole heart.

Anything less than wholehearted response to the living Jesus is lukewarmness. To wholeheartedly surrender to the living Jesus fully open the valve in your heart that tries to regulate or limit His activity within you. Then keep it wide open every day so that He can freely overflow in and through you as the living God, releasing lively, eternal, life-giving water.

People don’t shy away from wholehearted Christ-followers. They rarely see that kind of passion about Jesus freely expressed. People are seldom neutral to passionate Christianity focused on interacting with the risen Jesus. They’re either drawn to it or away from it.

If you don’t build a wholehearted relationship with the living Jesus, you’ll be continually distracted from Him. Half-hearted Christianity won’t make you whole.

Every day I experience Jesus streaming in Spirit and in truth through my heart, welling up and flowing out as rivers of alive water giving life to my soul. You can learn to live your life as an ongoing, wholehearted response to the risen Jesus!

Many people avoid wholeheartedly following Jesus because it involves surrender, vulnerability, and tenderness. However, I love it when people wholeheartedly talk about Jesus and back up what they say with a holy, compassionate, and joyous lifestyle.

Humility needs to be embraced, not resisted. It helps us set aside ego so that Jesus can take over the steering wheel of our life. If you feel dead inside, hearing Jesus’ voice will make you come alive. Ever listen to Him.

If you’re longing for more meaning and purpose in life, you can find it by fully opening your heart to Jesus. Discover the amazing power of surrender! When you’re wholehearted about Jesus, your life is fully engaged with Him.

Giving Jesus
A part
Of your heart
Is only a start.
Put everything
In His cart.

Half-hearted Christianity
Won’t make you whole.
It might not even
Save your soul.

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The indescribable joy of heart ongoing interaction with Jesus

Posted on September 1, 2022 by Steve Simms

Continually experiencing Jesus is unspeakably amazing. I wish I could find words that could somehow describe it. If there’s anything or anybody worth getting thrilled about and wholeheartedly celebrating it’s the living, resurrected Jesus.

Jesus! If you fell no thrill when you hear His name, you’re overlooking His radiant glory. Ongoing heart-to-heart interaction with Jesus is wonderfully indescribable.

My favorite people to hang around are people who are visibly thrilled with Jesus. Sometimes they’re hard to find. If someone claims to be a Christian, of all the things they talk or are passionate about, Jesus should always be number one.

No experience can compare with life’s ultimate experience — interacting heart-to-heart with the living Jesus. Jesus works inside you. Notice His promptings. Then say and do what He tells you. If you’re unwilling to say and do what Jesus prompts you to, you don’t really trust Him.

The risen Jesus is an everyday Guide, Companion, Comforter, Teacher, Savior, and Master. He’s not just a Sunday morning sermon topic.

Too often going to church is seen as the high-water point of being a Christian. To me it’s the low-water point. Jesus is so much more powerful and glorious than church. Maybe we should point people to Him instead of to a Sunday morning meeting.

Church attendance is a minimal view of Christianity. Daily experiencing Christ and His glory is a much more accurate view.

I’ve never attended a human-led church service that comes close to the incredible experience of personally interacting with Jesus. To confine Jesus to Heaven or to a church building is to miss the amazing point that “Christ in you is the hope of glory.”

Jesus is so much more present and powerful in daily life than church presents Him to be. Church isn’t definitive of Christianity. Human lives radically transformed and inwardly empowered to daily follow and obey the risen Jesus are.

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Being in a Spirit-led Salvation Army “band”

Posted on September 1, 2022 by Steve Simms

For a decade my wife and I were in a Salvation Army band. We were both working for them when they approached us and asked us if we would like to start a Sunday morning meeting in an empty church building that they owned. They said that the traditional church format had never worked in that building and asked if we would do something nontraditional.

We accepted their offer and began to meet band-style (as in a band of brothers and sisters meeting interactively together with open-hearted honesty, love, humility, and compassion). It was a 10-year experience. We typically had between 20 and 35 adults. After praise and worship, people would freely share as they felt prompted by the Lord. We soon discovered that ordinary people are eloquent when they speak from their heart as led by the Spirit.

Every Sunday was different, but incredible. Each week we heard, saw, and experienced amazing things. Love abounded in our multi-racial band. Lives were changed in front of our eyes. We were supported and encouraged by local, regional, and national Salvation Army leadership until a new local leader arrived in Nashville and told us we couldn’t meet like that anymore because it wasn’t The Salvation Army way.

That was five years ago. Since then, my wife and I have experienced much banding. We meet almost every day with people in both regularly scheduled and spontaneous gatherings (in person, by Zoom, or on the phone). We now have open-hearted sharing and spiritual connections with more people than we have ever had before. We are continually amazed at how God continues to knit our hearts together with people we’ve known for a while and with people we’ve only recently met. We love band-style gatherings of the body of Christ (whether in twos or threes or in big band meetings where 20 or 30 or more people share as prompted by the risen Jesus).

To learn more about my Salvation Army band experience, click here.

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Why Moses saw the invisible

Posted on August 31, 2022 by Steve Simms

Troublesome circumstances are painfully obvious in daily life. It’s easy to look at the disturbances that we see around us and within us and to find plenty of reasons to feel despair and discouragement. We need a boost — something to put a joyful bounce in our step and lift us up. But where can we find such a boost?

When Moses’ life of abundance and privilege in Egypt fell apart and he had to lose everything and run for his life to the scarcity of the Midian desert, he didn’t lose hope. How did he not despair? “He persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.” In the heartbreak of his devastation and loss, Moses looked beyond his visible circumstances and beheld the One who makes all things work together for good for those who love God.

Seeing the invisible working of God is invigorating and empowering! I call it “the Jesus thrill!” The pain and brokenness that we experience as human beings can be the attention getter that wakes us up to the invisible and causes us to look “unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” As we behold the Lamb of God, the invisible Jesus thrill fills us and overflows from within us and shines visibly on our face. Then as J.D. Walt said: “The harder life is the better Jesus gets.”

Ever since I first experienced the Jesus thrill, I’ve tried to keep anything from distracting me from it. If you’re unaware of the presence of Jesus, you won’t be able to stat thrilled about Him. Open your spiritual eyes!

Christianity needs to be demonstrated and radiated more than it needs to be legislated, evaluated, and speculated about. It can be very disappointing to keep trying the pastor-lead, sermon-based church over and over again, expecting different results. If happiness isn’t happening in your heart, you won’t find it anywhere else.

Spiritual fire,
A burning desire
To get closer to God
Is a sign of spiritual life.

When Christians maintain
A Jesus thrill
They avoid spreading
A religious chill.

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Jesus first! (Avoid “Christian factionalism.”)

Posted on August 30, 2022 by Steve Simms

When Christ-followers allow human opinions, policies, ideas, or governments to divide them and make them hostile toward each other, they abandon the unity of the Spirit. The result is Christian factionalism.

Human authority systems are unredeemable because they are operated by fallen human beings (and demonic principalities and powers pulling strings behind the scenes). Regardless of the ideology, manipulative methodology runs the show as what the world considers strength and greatness “lords it over,” puts self-interest first, and pulls rank on people. Jesus told His disciples not to function that way, not to be caught up in world systems.

Instead, the greatest of Jesus’ followers are called to take the position of the least and to be the servant of all — to be meek, poor in spirit, without titles, celebrators of being persecuted, blessers of those who curse them, directly being led by the Holy Spirit and letting Him freely flow from within them as rivers of living water producing an abundance of the fruit of the Spirit. In other words, as citizens of the kingdom of God, Christ-followers are supposed to live as salt — aliens and pilgrims “in the world, but not of the world” and to keep the living resurrected Jesus always first.

Even churches and religious institutions tend to support Christian factionalism. For example, church pastorization promotes it by focusing people’s attention on a local paster instead of on the risen Jesus. The truth is: Christianity needs to be demonstrated and radiated more than it needs to be legislated, evaluated, and speculated about.

Without the Jesus thrill ever alive and ringing in our heart, it’s easy to fall in line with the world and its chaos. We need continual spiritual awakening! For some practical ways to keep Jesus first, search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

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“Pastorized” Christianity

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Steve Simms

The pastorization of Christianity has trained many Christians to trust a pastor more than they trust the Holy Spirit. Too many Christians talk more about their pastor than they do about Jesus.

Instead of leaving “the elementary teachings about Christ” and going “on to maturity” pastorization has focused on repeatedly teaching “the milk of the word” over and over again. Church needs more layitization — to drop titles and to see every Christ-follower as equally called by God.

Pastorization has made a solitary pastor the head of a congregation, but the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Head! Pastorized Christianity tends to exalt one man above everybody else whenever the body of Christ meets. It teaches that a one-man pastor is indispensable to a church and allows little or no room for apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers to be equal leaders in a church.

Pastorization tends to identify a church by one man and even call it “his church.” It is one of the biggest causes of Christian fractionalism. Pastorized Christians tend to have trouble trusting and obeying the direct leading of the Holy Spirit.

The prioritization of pastorization tends to take church control out of the hands of the risen Jesus. Pastorized Christians can have trouble trusting and obeying the direct leading of the Holy Spirit.

Pastorization isn’t the only model for Christianity in the New Testament. (See 1 Corinthians 14:26 and the 50+ New Testament one anothers.) There’s more to Christianity than pastorization. Search: Beyond Church Ekklesia.

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My heart continually cries out for REVIVAL!!!

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Steve Simms

The way of spiritual awakening is much simpler that we imagine. When Christ-followers humbly gather to expect and experience direct revelation and individual response — to receive the inner prompting of the Holy Spirit and to outwardly proclaim and do what comes to them (as described in 1 Corinthians 14:26) — members of the body of Christ will begin to learn to relinquish control from human authority to the actual Headship of the living Jesus and the glory of God will start to spontaneously manifest in and through ordinary, Spirit-prompted people. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, yet it’s very rare because Christians (just like ancient Israel) want a king — one man to be in control — instead of meeting under the direct and personal control of the risen Jesus.

The truth is that human organization gradually quenches the Spirit. That’s why Jesus told His disciples not to “lord it over people” with titles and a religious hierarchy. Only the living Jesus can lead us to spiritual awakening. Until we learn to listen to and obey Him, revival will remain a distant dream or a short-lived phenomenon instead of a daily way of living in the power and presence of God’s Spirit.

My heart continually cries out for the present-day members of the body of Christ to learn to gather for revelation and response. If yours does too, search for: Beyond Church Ekklesia. Learn how Jesus to let take the wheel and override human control of church meetings.

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Self-focus (like “hocus pocus”) makes happiness disappear

Posted on August 28, 2022 by Steve Simms

Self-focus
Like hocus pocus
Makes happiness
Magically disappear.

The greater your self-focus, the less will be your happiness. The more you define happiness, the harder it is to find. Happiness is discovered through simple joys, not by a detailed, self-focused plan.

Our self-focused desires are never fully satisfied. If we don’t learn to resist them, they will dominate and define us.

Self-focus entangles us in desire. Self-forgetfulness frees us to follow wisdom. When self-focus dominates your life, you stay stuck in your own feelings, desires, and opinions.

To be focused on self is to obscure everything else. Self-focus blurs reality. Truth is found beyond self.

When you lose yourself in serving others your desire-driven self-focus drifts away as you joyously spread kindness. Self-forgetfulness is a gift you give yourself because it frees you from the chains of self-focus.

Our conscience is designed to help us control our desires. Too often we let our desires drown out our conscience.

One of the greatest blessings in life is to forget about yourself and focus on the beauty and delight all around you. The grace that can make us citizens of the kingdom of God can also give us the desire and the power to deny self.

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Guard your mind and open your heart!

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Steve Simms

Too many people today have an open mind and guarded heart. I think we’d be happier if we opened our heart and guarded our mind. An unguarded mind will be tricked into making many harmful choices.

The mind is designed to analyze and protect us from falsehood; the heart to connect us with people. Too often we switch them out. When feelings override wisdom and logic a society crumbles into chaos. People have the right to choose to follow their feelings rather than reason and logic, but that often produces harmful results.

When we compel our mind to approve of what’s unreasonable, we short-circuit our ability to tell right from wrong. An open mind that tries to affirm and accept everything quickly becomes illogical. An open heart that embraces compassion for everyone soon overflows with kindness.

It’s hard to be happy if you ignore your ability to examine and reject harmful thoughts. It’s hard not to feel lonely and disconnected if you ignore your ability to open your heart to people.

True science follows reason and logic. When we put feelings first, we’re not “following the science.

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The ongoing Jesus thrill makes joy real!

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Steve Simms

If anything
Tries to chill
Your Jesus thrill,
Don’t sit still,
Run!

Christians don’t need to imagine the thrill of encountering the risen Jesus. We’re invited to continually interact with Him. No one can thrill a human heart like Jesus. Let Him electrify you from within!

If you’ve ever seen someone’s face radiant with God’s glory, you’ve seen the Jesus thrill. I love to see faces shining with the thrill of Jesus. It’s a sight the whole world should see. Don’t dim His light! Shine bright.

There’s too much unignited Christianity, limping along without the Jesus thrill. To settle for formal, no thrill Christianity is to miss out on “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” When people who have experienced the Jesus thrill are trained to passively sit thru a sermon and to avoid openly expressing their passion for Christ, their heart will tend to grow cold. If you find no daily thrill in knowing Jesus, perhaps you only think you know Him.

Every day the Jesus thrill keeps my heart on fire for God! When I call on Jesus, He thrills me with His presence and fills me with peace and joy. I choose to live happily, ever grateful to be alive. I want my life to reflect Jesus the way a calm lake so beautifully reflects the trees standing by its side, so I guard my mind and open my heart to Him!

Everyday Jesus shows me things that fill me with joyous amazement and peaceful gratefulness. It’s hard to follow and obey Him if you’re not thrilled about Him. A bored, uninspired Christian has lost contact with the electrifying presence of the living Jesus!

I love to be around people who have the Jesus thrill! They talk about Him with such passion and joy! Experience your own Jesus thrill. Check out The Joy Of Early Christianity.

What thrills you about Jesus?

Christianity should be
An ongoing thrill
But we've turned it
Into a Sunday morning
Religious drill.

When we let Jesus
Thrill us
And fill us
With His presence
We become contagious
With His glory.

If church would be more revealing
Of the presence of Jesus
It would be incredibly thrilling
And powerfully healing!

Church without a thrill
Makes the Gospel
Like a pill:
Take it in
And then
Forget it.

To "quench the Spirit"
Is to conceal
Or to chill
The Jesus thrill.

If Jesus doesn't seem real
It's because we're
Overlooking the thrill
Of His glorious presence.

Without passion,
Fire and thrill
About Jesus
A Christian's heart
Will slowly chill.

Christ-followers
Are called
To be God's light,
Consistently doing right
In an environment
Of wrongdoing,
In the world but not
Conformed to it,
Living with the insight
Of a transformed perspective.

Here's the deal.
The Jesus thrill
Is real,
Not hype.
Christ in you
Can ignite your heart.

Open your heart
To feel
The thrill
Of Jesus
Everyday!

Bitterness
Cannot coexist
Very long
With ongoing prayer
For someone
Who has hurt you.
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