Communing & living as the Body of Christ

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Steve Simms

–Communing as the Body of Christ–
When people gather
To openly share
As prompted
By God’s Spirit
And spontaneously start
To pour out their heart
Together in prayer
They begin
To deeply care
For each other.
Why is this so rare?

To see, to care for, to embrace, to identify with, and to truly become the least of these is to prepare the way so that God can mightily move and ever increasingly manifest His glory amid our brokenness and poverty of Spirit. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Obscurity causes our earthen vessel to be overlooked and fractures our pride so that the inner glory of God can shine unquenched and uninterrupted through the gift of holy meekness and self-detachment.

Following Jesus means keeping Jesus always first. It is to continually seek to fully surrender your will to His and to humbly obey Him as He reveals Himself to you through the Scriptures, your conscience, circumstances, His Holy Spirit promptings in your heart, and the testimonies and guidance of other Christ-followers. Be an all-out follower of the risen Jesus!

If you start talking to Jesus every day from your inner brokenness, you’ll soon notice that He’s talking to you. Humbly share your heart with Him today.

Christians in the New Testament would sometimes look to one person above the others in a congregation, but I don’t see that person having a solitary rank or solitary institutional power like a CEO. Individuals seem to have been followed because of their spiritual maturity, not because of institutional positional power. Also, Paul rebuked the Corinthians for exalting one spiritual leader above the others.

Mutual submission is essential. “Submit to one another.” Let’s obey the Scriptures and submit to one another as we follow the living resurrected Jesus Christ.

“A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” –Luke 22:24-27 NIV.

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Christians as God’s garden, not as a religious institution

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Steve Simms

Behold the Lamb of God by looking unto Jesus and seeing Him who invisible. Look beyond church! Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter so perhaps we should look to the Spirit for comfort rather than to a religious leader.

Christians need to grow the fruit of God’s Spirit, not religious institutions. Make your life a fruit-of-the-Spirit-garden.

The only legitimate Head for any group claiming to be part of the body of Christ is the living, resurrected Jesus. Anyone or anything that interferes with you maintaining a direct relationship with Jesus is an idol. We need to point people to the risen Jesus, not to our favorite religious institution.

Christians should be disciples of the living Jesus, not disciples of a particular Christian leader. Just because some people use the title pastor (or other religious titles) doesn’t mean that they are reliable spiritual leaders. When modern Christian leaders cause people to look to them, they neglect to direct people’s attention to the living Jesus.

When Christians ignore and set aside their various church identities, they can enjoy the amazing unity of the Spirit. I love to hang out with Christ-followers who love to talk about Jesus without mentioning church affiliation. To identity with a particular church name is to disassociate yourself from the rest of the body of Christ. Identifying as someone who loves the risen Jesus is enough.

The organizational chart for the body of Christ is: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” All true Christians are united heart to heart, but institutional identity interrupts our unity. Christians can follow desires, feelings, opinions, a church, or a religious leader, but we’re called to follow the risen Jesus.

Daily reading the Bible with a humble, open heart, will help us avoid being deceived by another Jesus being preached by a misguided leader. It will keep us focused on the living Jesus.

There are tens of thousands of institutional hierarchies in Christianity. Every new one further divides the body of Christ. Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth: “I appeal to you . . . that there be no divisions among you.” Christians have been ignoring his appeal ever since. Today there are an estimated 45,000+ separate denominators.

If the living Jesus
Is unnoticed
And unseen
In your heart,
There’s probably
Someone
Or something
Standing between
You and Him.

The person
Who truly sees
How the Pharisees
Treated Jesus
Will be wary
Of religious
Institutionalism.
It can squeeze
The life-giving breeze
Of God’s Spirit
Out of us.

To shut down Christ’s
Inner living waterspout
Is to choose
To live without
His power.

Your life’s a garden
Where you can grow
The grapes of wrath
Or the fruit
Of God’s Spirit.

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“See-construction” vs. deconstruction

Posted on August 21, 2022 by Steve Simms

It’s time for Christian see-construction. We need to see what the risen Jesus is building and align our life with Him. He is the Source of Christian spirituality. Without see-construction (recognizing what Jesus is doing today) we’ll stay lost in our own self-focused sea.

See-construction gives hope for the hopeless. When we feel like all we can see around us (and even within us) is painful deconstruction, we need to look unto Jesus and see construction that God is doing. He is always working all things together “for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose,” whether it looks or feels like it or whether it doesn’t. He uses even the painful circumstances that occur my life to deconstruct my pride and rebellion so that I will be able to fully, humbly, and gloriously align with His abundant life.

Unless you use the blueprint of original Christianity (the writings of Jesus’ first followers) when you try to deconstruct human tradition from original Christianity, you can easily abandon the faith. If you will continually read (with a humble, open heart) the words about Him, written by His first followers, they can keep you from straying from Him.

We need see-construction so we can observe what is being built “on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.” (See Ephesians 2:20.) Instead of deconstructing the Bible, we need to let Jesus use the teachings of the apostles and prophets to deconstruct us. People who try to deconstruct the Bible are tearing down the teachings that are the foundation that Jesus is building on.

Bible deconstruction is attempted by the mind. Bible see-construction occurs in the heart. The more I let the Bible and the Holy Spirit reconstruct my heart, the more I’m able to see what Jesus is doing. Deconstructing the Bible is an attempt to silence the voice of God speaking through Christ’s first followers.

Jesus said: “I will build My ekklesia,” (mistranslated as “church” in most English Bibles). We need to engage in see-construction so we can recognize where the risen Jesus is building and follow His leading. Without see-construction we can easily overlook what God is doing in and through Christ.

Much that people have added to Christianity after Jesus’ first century followers has deconstructed what Jesus wants His body to be. The purpose of the writers of the Bible was not to build a religious structure, but to help people see what the living Jesus is building. They tried to avoid institutionalizing Christianity by continually pointing their readers to Jesus.

See construction! Testify to what Jesus is doing both within you and around you. Without adhering to the blueprint of the Bible, those who try to deconstruct Christianity will detach from its very foundation.

If people won’t listen to you, they won’t hear you. Win their interest instead of just giving them your argument. If you’re interested in see-constructing the joy of early Christianity, click here.

Religious ceremonies
Should never be
A substitute for
Powerful testimonies.

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Your unresolved issues cause pain

Posted on August 20, 2022 by Steve Simms

Human desires divide us. Spirit-led desires unite us. When people connect heart-to-heart it’s an indication that God is working.

Deception dances through the door of the unresolved issues hiding in our heart. Bringing them into the open helps us see reality. When your unresolved issues become “cold cases” in your heart, it’s easy to falsely assume that they have no more impact on your life.

Unresolved issues unravel many attempts to hold life together. When Jesus says “Repent,” He’s asking us to resolve the issues we have with our conscience, with other people, and with God.

Resenting your unresolved issues is self-torment. Do your best to resolve them, then release them like a paper airplane. Unresolved issues, even when hidden or denied, maintain a subconscious impact on the present. Honestly facing them is healing.

When a person people care about dies, they often wish they could have one more conversation with them to resolve their unresolved issues. Have that conversation today.

Human desires
Often lie.
Avoid aligning
Your life
With a lying
Point of view.

Desires that are
Contrary to God’s will
Often are a temporary thrill
But in the long run
They will kill
Peace and joy
And replace them
With unresolved guilt
That no pill
Can heal.

Burying unresolved issues
In your heart
Is classic denial
But after a while
You’ll have a big pile
And won’t be able
To joyfully smile.

When Christians assemble
To be led by God’s Spirit
They will resemble
A family reunion,
With no disunion
And will inwardly tremble
In awe of Jesus’ presence.

Many people have found healing and recovery from their unresolved emotional pain by surrendering their life to the risen Jesus. That can also happen for you!

Slavery and Jim Crow racism are the most unresolved issues in American history. Search: Off the RACE Track book.

Self-focused Christianity is like wearing your clothes wrong side out. When church replaced discipleship-focus with desire-focus it started to resemble an audience for musical theater rather than a spiritual army.

I love reading books that God uses to make adjustments in my heart. He has often led me to books like that.

People appreciate kindness. Give someone a reason to appreciate you today.

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Should life be easy or difficult?

Posted on August 19, 2022 by Steve Simms

To evaluate whether life is ease and comfort or difficulties and problems is to dissect life with our human perspective by using the principles of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We call on our own understanding to sort our circumstances into the categories of either good or evil. We embrace the idea that comfort is good, and that difficulties are evil. But the Bible, speaking from the tree of life, presents a transcendent point of view: “ALL things work together for good to those who love God . . .” and “Count it ALL joy when you fall into diverse temptations.”

The “normal” (fallen) state of life is to live from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Spirit-led state of life is to live from the tree of life. Christ-followers are called to look “unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” and to trust that He is allowing the situations and circumstances that come into our life so that they can craft us into His image, from glory to glory (even when it feels like life is falling apart).

Jesus sent His disciples to
Go and do
What He told them to.
Now what about you?

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A prototype to explore Spirit-led living

Posted on August 19, 2022 by Steve Simms

Prototype? This is what inspired my thoughts about the word prototype. As we prayed together in the early days of The Salvation Army Berry Street’s Spirit-led, participatory meetings, a woman said that God was building a prototype but that she didn’t know what the word meant. A prototype is a working model used to test a concept or idea, so that it can be improved, implemented, and duplicated. I wrote a book that describes the Berry Street prototype.

Far too often Christianity is an idea without prototypes–theology that’s not demonstrated and lived out in day-to-day life. A prototype of Spirit-led living is worth thousands of sermons. Let’s be a prototype of the Spirit-led lifestyle!

Jesus is the prototype for the Christian lifestyle. If we won’t daily follow and obey Him, we’ll always be off track. Christianity makes much more sense when you daily follow and obey the risen Jesus than when you just sit and listen to preaching.

Jesus is the Way not just a religious discussion topic. Christians are called to actually follow and obey Jesus (the Way) not to analyze Him. A Christian needs to be a prototype of the Spirit-led lifestyle, not just hear sermons about it. Many people have heard sermons for decades, but they’ve never stepped out and explored the neighborhood of Spirit-led living.

The type
Of Christian
The world
Needs to see
Is a prototype
Of the Heaven.

To preach
Without being
A working prototype
Is merely
Religious hype.

When Christians gather for worship, it should be a prototype of Heaven’s activities, not just sitting for a religious lecture. Ekklesia (God’s assembly referred to in the English New Testament as church) is supposed to be a prototype of Heaven where people can sense and feel Jesus’ reality and see His presence demonstrated among them.

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Jesus radiates like a sunny rugged seashore

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Steve Simms

I love to see the gleaming, glorious radiance of the risen Jesus Christ shinning from someone’s face. Christ-followers need to meet in circles, not rows! When church is drab and dull it unintentionally denies its claims to represent the glorious Creator of the Universe.

Religion often restricts God’s radiance, confining it to certain ceremonies, places, or days of the week. God radiates everywhere. When people perceive no inner radiance shining in their heart, life seems dreary, but when they feel it, they have hope!

When I read the Bible with an open heart, I feel an indescribable radiance within me. When I focus my attention on the living Jesus, His radiance shines throughout my heart!

The sparkle of Jesus deep in my heart radiates outwardly causing my eyes to twinkle and my mouth to smile. Like gazing at the radiance of rugged sun-lit seashore, Jesus dazzles me!

As glorious as God’s radiance is in awesome scenes of nature, it’s even greater when it shines within your heart. The peace of inner stillness exposes the bright light of God radiance within a human heart. Jesus still sets people free from the dominance of their human desires and their dependence on substances and fills them with His radiance!

In the presence
Of the living God
There is always awe
And holy radiance.

A heart in cadence
With Jesus
Will resonate
With His radiance.

Our veils
Of distraction
Make us unaware
Of the living water wells
Of God’s radiance
In the cells
Of our heart.

Theology can stimulate
The human mind,
But awareness
Of God’s glory
Will radiate
In the heart.

When words
About Jesus
Neglect
To reflect
His radiance,
They reject
His reality!

When you encounter someone
Who’s carrying God’s radiance,
It’s like when a beautiful fragrance
Suddenly fills a room.

A heart filled
With the presence
Of Jesus
Will spread
His radiance
Everywhere!

The truly great
Never radiate
Hate!

When I was praying in tongues recently, I kept repeating the phrase kola, kola, kola. I ask God what kola means in the unknown language that I was speaking, and the word radiance popped into my mind. That inspired my blog post for today.

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Letting God reign while basking in His spiritual rain!

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Steve Simms

In the Bible, the prophet Elijah confronts a woman who doesn’t believe in God. He doesn’t ask her to accept God or to believe in God. (See 1 Kings 17.) Instead, he gives her hopeless heart a challenging hope-filled word from God and asks her to go and obey it. Elijah is so filled with the Spirit of God that the woman is inspired to go and do the word of the living God, even though she doesn’t believe in Him and the results are miraculous. Perhaps instead (or in addition to) asking people to “accept Christ” we could give them a Word from Christ and ask them to go and obey it.

I was the Chaplain in an 86-bed alcohol and drug rehab center for 5 years. The Spirit prompted me to challenge every new man to read the New Testament for at least 5 minutes a day for 21 days. Most agreed to do it. Many began but quit in a day or two. A few stayed with it for 21 days and every time their hopeless was turned into hope and the Bible came alive for them.

One man told me that he was an atheist and would read exactly 5 minutes a day for exactly 21 days and prove to me that the process won’t do anything for him. He frequently came by my office telling me that nothing was happening and on the 20th night he was gloating about proving me wrong. I reminded him that he had one more time to read. Then I prayed for him frequently the next 24 hours. When I came into work the next afternoon, he met me at the door, thrilled about God. He told me that He had read and obeyed a Bible verse that morning and God had filled his heart. From that point on he read the Bible everyday with passion. He finished the program still excited about Jesus.

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Churches meeting in 10 joyfully creative ways

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Steve Simms

Church services have typically been confined to a singular way of meeting–one man lecturing everybody else. However, as in any activity, the same-ole-same-ole gets boring. Let’s open church up to the creativity of the Holy Spirit! Here are 10 alternative ways Christians that can meet for worship:

  1. Spirit-directed Bible discussion: Read a passage from Scripture together and then allow anyone present to share what something from that passage means to them and how it touches their heart.
  2. Testimony meeting: Let the people present take turns telling the story of how they first encountered Jesus and how they were born again. They can also share what Jesus is doing in their life currently.
  3. 1 Corinthians 14:26 meeting: Each person listens to Jesus and the says and/or does whatever He tells them to.
  4. Hot seat prayer meeting: Pull out a chair and let people take turns sitting in it for prayer. Then let the rest of the group lay hands on whoever is in the hot seat and take turns praying for that person.
  5. Support and accountability meeting: Gather like a support group and let everyone answer the question: “How is it with your soul?” as people listen with compassion, encouragement, and prayer.
  6. Gifts of the Spirit lab: Pray and wait for God to begin manifesting the gifts of the Spirit through various people who are present.
  7. Open prayer meeting: Gather for prayer and let everybody present pray out loud however they are moved by the Spirit.
  8. Adoration meeting: Everyone offer praise and worship to Jesus in songs and other heart-felt expressions of verbal and non-verbal adoration.
  9. Soaking meeting: Gather in the presence of Jesus and quietly wait before Him, “soaking” in His presence.
  10. Intercessory prayer meeting: Gather and focus the prayers on a particular need.
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Being forged & refined by Jesus

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Steve Simms

Jesus is the way
Beyond pride,
Beyond self-effort,
And beyond despair.
Let Jesus be the air
You breathe.
Let Him continually fill you
Like deep breathing,
His Spirit,
His very presence
Always working in
And through you.
Even if you’re called
A “fool for Christ,”
It’s spiritually
Advantageous
To be so “poor in spirit”
That your love for Jesus
Is so outrageous
That it becomes
Contagious.

Raw metal’s worthless until it’s heated red hot and then truly transformed by hammer and anvil. Let Jesus mold the metal in you. Forge ahead and trust Jesus to forge your heart. The only way that human iron ore becomes spiritual steel is through the heat of God’s forge.

Nothing is spiritually forged without God’s fire. Strong Christian growth requires a heart set ablaze with passion for Jesus. Jesus wants to forge your heart and restore it to His amazing glory on the anvil of His will.

Whenever I meet a person who’s openly passionate about following and obeying the living Jesus, there’s an instant inner bond between us. Our hearts have been forged to fit together.

Perhaps it would be better for Christians to let the living Jesus truly transform us instead of looking for a pastor to feed us on Sunday mornings. We need more than weekly religious feeding! We need Christ’s inner forging!

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