Lightning people get the light-blocking bugs out

Posted on May 26, 2022 by Steve Simms

Christians are called to be lightning people:

Tiny bugs flying
And flashing light
In the night
Bring delight
To my sight.
They don’t hide their light!

Christ’s light, shinning in your heart, doesn’t need a covering. Uncover it for all to see. Be a lightning person who removes the light-blocking bugs from your heart. See Matthew 5:14-16. Too often the light of the risen Jesus is covered up and blocked by religion.

When a Christ-filled person, who overflows with His hope, voluntarily steps into and embraces a hopeless situation in an incarnational way, it is no longer hopeless. Sometimes the best thing you can do in a situation that you can’t fix is to open your heart to people’s suffering and “weep with those who weep.”

People who are passionately in love with the living Jesus are automatically drawn together and to those who are suffering. They don’t require religious rules but are led to heart-to-heart connection by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus isn’t dead and gone, confined to history or Heaven. He’s present and active 24/7/365 and He wants to be your now Lord! Too often Christians would rather find a church that makes them happy than to live to please the Lord. Churches divide Christians into denominations, but Jesus wants to unite us! When Christianity was confined to and defined as church, it lost much of its power.

To identify with and step into someone’s painful situation has been called “incarnational ministry.” I know a couple who many years ago moved into a violent, inner-city neighborhood with their children so that they could shine the light of Christ there. They crossed racial, cultural, and economic lines to fully embrace the people there and to open their home and their lives to them. I’ve been in awe of how they have given so much to demonstrate the love of Jesus and continue to do so as they still live and are entwined in that neighborhood.

Jesus writes on human hearts. Let Him be the “author and finisher of your faith.” We can hide from church people and preachers, but no one can hide from Jesus. He sees it all! When the risen Jesus is allowed to rule in someone’s heart, religious rules aren’t necessary!

The writings of the first Christians show how to encounter and walk with Jesus like they did. The Bible’s a handbook for light not a textbook for analysis.

If you’re spirituality dead, a Sunday religious life-support system won’t do you any good. We need the risen Jesus, not religion. Organized Christianity too often resists the direct leadership of Jesus and instead relies on institutionalism, tradition, and human authority.

If you don’t maintain an interactive relationship with the living Jesus, your religious rules can be ruthless. The Bible says move beyond church as usual! Hebrews 6:1: “Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity . . .” Get moving!

Paul told first century Christians that Jesus “is powerful among you.” 2 Corinthians. 13:3. Are we willing to surrender our religious control and to let Him be powerful among 21st century Christians?

The Protestant Reformers are praised because they pointed out problems with church. Today few people want to follow their footsteps. Protestant Reformers tried to re-form church, but the proper “form” for the body of Christ is to be led by His Spirit. Romans 8:14.

Christians need to do doxology,
Heart-felt expressions of praise,
More than religious methodology.

Spiritual life,
The risen Jesus
Living in you,
Doesn’t require
That you be continually hooked up
To a religious life-support system.

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Posted in darkness and light, fireflies, God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, inner Light, light of Christ, light of the world, light shinning in darkness, Quaker light, walk in the light | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Spirit-led to focus on, follow, & glorify Jesus

Posted on May 25, 2022 by Steve Simms

We can’t be Spirit-led
If we’re unwilling
To move ahead.

Christians who don’t learn to be led by the Spirit are missing out on what it means to be a child of God. (See Romans 8:14.)

If Christians won’t learn to be led by the Spirit when they gather with friends in church, it’s much harder to learn it in a hostile world. Being led by the Spirit can’t be taught by sermons or lectures. It can only be learned by doing it–by actually listening to and obeying the Spirit.

If Christians knew how to be led by the Spirit as well as we know how to be led by our own desires, we’d experience continual miracles People who are led by the Spirit radiate the fruit of the Spirit and experience the gifts of the Spirit throughout the day.

When Christians are listening to and following Jesus, the “Good Shepherd,” they don’t need to be fenced in by religious rules. The best use of human free will is to continually choose to be led by God’s Spirit, not by our own opinions, feelings, and desires. We can’t be Spirit-led if we ignore or resist the Spirit’s inner promptings.

Who should be acclaimed by Christians? The Holy Spirit wants to keep the living Jesus front and center–”Christ alone, Cornerstone!” God said that He will share His glory with no man. How can a true ministry to proclaim Jesus carry a preacher’s name? Self-heralding is not Gospel preaching! Every Christ-follower is called to be a “fellow servant in the Lord”–to proclaim the Gospel in a dark world and to demonstrate the reality of the Gospel by serving one another in holiness and loving their enemies.

Humans like to count things, but we often neglect to count what counts the most. Jesus is the life. Let Him freely live inside you. Jesus is the truth. Let Him lead you to total honesty. Jesus is the way. Follow Him to peace and joy.

Fame
Shouldn’t go
To people who proclaim
The Gospel under their own name
But only to the One who is proclaimed.

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Posted in flowing of the Holy Spirit, hearing the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, led by the Spirit, Spirit-led | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Inspired by people who are different than me!

Posted on May 24, 2022 by Steve Simms

Human beings are fascinating. I’m especially fascinated by humans who look, think, or act differently than me. Listening to people’s stories and trying to see life from their perspective teaches me so much. When a stranger opens up to me, I learn that though we’re different in our circumstances, culture, or color, we’re basically the same inside our heart and I feel a deep connection–what the Bible calls love.

As a white college student, I sold “Ebony’s Pictorial History of Black America” door-to-door. Often strangers would begin to share with me their personal pain from racial discrimination. As I listened my heart would break for them, that people who were inwardly like me had been made to suffer because of their outward color.

As a man who has never even once been drunk, or high on drugs, I was the counselor and chaplain in a Salvation Army alcohol and drug rehab center. I listened to more than 1,400 men tell their story of how addiction had devasted their life. Though I had walked a different path, their pain was the same as mine and we often prayed together as our hearts embraced.

As a Bible school teacher for a time in India, working with young adults from a culture I knew nothing about, I was inspired by their passion to follow and obey Jesus in a nation where their fellow citizens saw Christianity as a foreign, intrusive, and unwelcome religion. Shortly after I left, one of my students was murdered for his faith. My heart deeply connected with those beautiful Christ-followers who were willing to be looked-down on for their beliefs yet continued to show kindness and compassion to all.

As an older adult who knows nothing about cars, I’ve been part of a team leading a ministry to a diverse group of young adults fresh out of high school who are learning to be mechanics and are passionate about cars. Beyond the automotive talk and across the generations, I see their heart and we feel a deep heart-connection between us.

Invited by The Salvation Army to start a “non-traditional church” in one of their church buildings in a poor neighborhood in the process of gentrifying, my wife and I started a sermon-free Sunday service where anyone present could share what God put on their heart. An amazingly diverse group of people began to gather and be led by God’s Spirit. As we weekly saw into each other’s heart, our diversity was covered by the beauty of Spirit-led heart-connection and salted with supernatural compassion, peace, and joy.

If you would like to know more about some of these experiences, search for: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind. Thank you.

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Jesus, where do You go to church?

Posted on May 23, 2022 by Steve Simms

I asked Jesus where He goes to church, and this is what came to me:

Anytime people gather in My name I show up, whether they call it church or not. It can be two people praying together in a coffee shop or a mega church of thousands. Since I reside inside My followers, many people take me to church with them. Of course, they also take Me wherever they go, whether they intend to or not.

When I’m in a church service, a few individuals open their heart to Me, talk to Me, and listen to My voice. Most however listen to the preacher (or daydream) and I have trouble getting their full attention.

I don’t attend church to be a spectator, but to be the literal Head. I want to direct and run the meeting Myself, but very rarely am I allowed to do that. There’s seldom any room for Me in the program. When I am allowed to take over a service, people call it revival because hearts are supernaturally changed, and lives are miraculously transformed. I would love to do that every time my followers meet, but they close the door to My active involvement and prefer to have me as a passive spectator in their church. It’s painful being ignored by the people I love.

Still, I keep showing up, waiting for the day when people will begin to notice that I’m actually present and speaking to them. I long for the entire congregation to individually listen to Me, and each person actually begin to say and to do what I tell them to. Then they would begin to see and experience My glory in unimaginable ways.

I’ve been waiting a long, long time, but I’m patient. If you’re reading this, please begin to listen to Me both in church and throughout the day as I talk directly to you. My sheep hear My voice. Listen and obey what I say.

When My followers truly and humbly open their hearts to Me and to each other, they’re amazed that the way that I speak in each person is so much in sync. If My speaking in people was merely subjective, it wouldn’t so precisely fit together with what I’m saying in other people, but it does!

Posted in church, Jesus Christ the Head, Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever, Jesus is alive, Jesus is the Head, Jesus is the Senior Pastor | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

“Love your enemies” is a call to be kind-frontational

Posted on May 23, 2022 by Steve Simms

When people are blunt
And confront
Without kindness
It’s an affront.
Keep kindness up front.

Some people harden their heart into a heavily fortified fort and live continually in their confront zone. Get out of your confront zone. Learn to kind-front people. Kind-frontation occurs when kindness is allowed to flow from human heart to human heart.

Try not to shy away from kind-frontation. Go ahead and spread kindness wherever you go. Kind-frontation is willing to listen to the other side of the story.

When people are confrontational, respond by being kind-frontational. Life goes better if instead of confronting people you kind-front them–speaking the truth with kindness. When people are on the track to confrontation, kindness is an escape route.

Kind-front life. Keep your heart and mind focused on being kind to all. When you’re involved in a confrontation, remember that kindness is a spiritual weapon with the power to change people’s hearts.

No matter how strongly we confront it and rail against it, reality doesn’t change. Truth is never inconsistent. People who are secure in their beliefs have no need to be hostile when confronted.

It usually works better to kind-front life heart-on than to confront it head-on. When confrontation begins to escalate, shift to kind-frontation. The darkness in a person begins to dissipate when it’s persistently kind-fronted.

Approving of people’s wrongdoing abandons them to its captivity. That isn’t kind-frontation.

“Love your enemies” is a call to be kind-frontational. Love isn’t approval. It knows how to confront wrongdoing with humility and kindness.

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Breathing the air of prayer

Posted on May 22, 2022 by Steve Simms

My heart continually
Cries out to the living Jesus.
Grasping and gasping, it travails
With a fanatically fixated focus
Because it knows no other
Solution for life’s situations
Or healing for its pain.
My brokenness ignites
My prayers with passion
And keeps me calling
Day and night
On the One who loves me most.

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What is cussing?

Posted on May 21, 2022 by Steve Simms

Profanity is often:

  • a weak attempt to appear strong.
  • an insincere use of words that ignores their literal meaning.
  • insult language that can easily create a hostile environment.
  • an intimidated attempt to appear intimidating.
  • a lack of self-control.
  • an irrational and subjective use of the power of speech.
  • a way to alienate people who want to keep their mind positive.
  • adolescent talk masquerading as adult language.
  • a limited vocabulary.
  • a coverup for fear.
  • the way to cuss and provoke a fuss.
  • a way to use words without thinking.
  • a means of making a phrase sound like a tantrum.
  • the compulsive attempt to appear in control.
  • a way to get rid of people who want meaningful conversation.
  • the manifestation of a desire to bully.
  • a bad habit that a lot of people would like to overcome.
  • a sign of insecurity.
  • a lack of originality.
  • an example of being in bondage to a chain of vulgar thought.
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Slavery/human trafficking (past or present) is evil

Posted on May 21, 2022 by Steve Simms

To be antislavery is to stand against the immorality of slavery. Slavery is now legally wrong almost everywhere. I believe that it has always been an evil thing.

It violates what Jesus said is the 2nd greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Nobody wants to be a slave and to have their free will continually denied by force and brutality. People who hold (or held) a person in bondage and claim them as their property, aren’t showing them love. There is nothing loving about human trafficking!

Whether it is present day or in the past, there’s one thing I know about human trafficking. It is cruel and immoral! Search for: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind. Thank you.

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The joy of inner objectivity

Posted on May 20, 2022 by Steve Simms

Self is subjective. There’s no objectivity without self-denial. Subjectivity tries to defend what we want. Objectivity tries to discover what is really true, even if we don’t want it to be so.

People’s thoughts, feelings, and desires can be objectively tested against reality. They don’t have to be subjectively accepted. To identify people by their self-proclaimed feelings and desires is subjective. Their feelings and desires don’t define who they are!

Without honesty there can be no objectivity. When the human conscience says, “Be honest,” it’s being objective! If you’re unwilling to openly go against your feelings, desires, and opinions, you can’t be objective!

If you consistently see things as you want them to be, you’ll wander in deception. You’ll seldom stumble into truth.

Cherry picking facts that confirm your feelings and desires is a weak attempt to make subjectivity seem objective. Subjectivity interprets life as you want it to be. Objectivity tries to interpret life as it is. Pride interprets things subjectively. It requires genuine humility to things as they really are.

My own inner voice is subjective. It twists things to please me. The inner voice of Jesus is objective. It tells me the way things really are, even when I don’t want to know.

People who follow the risen Jesus aren’t living by their own rules. They deny their own rules and self-focused desires in order to obey Him.

The purpose of
The Gospel story
Isn’t to supply material
For boring sermons.
It’s to empower people
To live in God’s glory!

Life becomes amazing when you open your heart to Spirit-led visioning. Christianity becomes “a spectator sport” when no commitment or responsibilities are expected, and no Spirit-led objectives set.

If you’re a Christ-follower your heart should be full of live wires flowing with the risen Jesus, not dead power lines that carry no current. If it’s not your primary objective to hear, follow, and obey the living Jesus, it won’t “just happen.”

Faith without implementation is empty, religious speculation. Christianity was never intended to be aimless sitting in church. Jesus said: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”

Christians aren’t called to defeat people. They’re called to defeat their own temptations and ungodly desires.

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The power of mutual submission

Posted on May 19, 2022 by Steve Simms

Here’s some good news: The kingdom of God is one invisible nation, indivisible, with deliverance and healing for all who will humbly receive it.

When we’re radically submitted to the risen Jesus as citizens of God’s kingdom, living in humble, ongoing obedience to His will, we begin to walk in mutual submission to and heart-felt service to one another. We begin to “Consider others better than yourself,” and “Submit to one another.” That consideration and submission “is fitting in the Lord.” It means being full of love for others and without harshness.

Christians today have trouble embracing mutual submission because church for many centuries has tended to follow an authoritarian model. Although we say that Christ is the Head, functionally He’s actually a figurehead, while a pastor literally runs the service and operates as if he is the head. Jesus gave an alternative model. He said: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.”

A great person serves others without pulling rank, exploiting positional power, or boasting in titles or credentials. For example, a great husband serves his wife, and a great wife serves her husband. When members of the body of Christ gather as His Spirit-led town hall meeting, God’s kingdom comes and brings submission to God and to one another.

In the light of the Cross of Christ, there are no human rights. None of us are entitled to anything. We’ve earned nothing. We’re doing better than we deserve. Everything we have is through grace and mercy. Now we need to show grace and mercy to all people, because God so love the world that . . .

The pride in me causes me to resist humbling myself. To be truly humble I must resist and die to my pride. “Consider others better than yourself” today.

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