Zombie heart or living heart?

Posted on September 13, 2021 by Steve Simms

To be alive on the outside but dead on the inside is to be an inner zombie. It reveals a need to be born from within. Let your heart come alive!

Hearts, passionate about Jesus, radiate like red hot lava, but when the passion dies, they harden into stone. “Stir up the gift within you.”

When inner life is like a freeway traffic jam, shut down by plans, programs, habits, and addictions, the Spirit is quenched. For the fruit of the Spirit to grow in abundance requires that we let the Holy Spirit freely flow both within us and among us.

Creating an environment where joy can freely flow from human hearts (innocent, Spirit-led joy), is one of my great delights. Demonstrating the joy, love, and peace of the living Jesus is much more effective than theologizing about Him.

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33 3ff3ctiv3 ways to innovat3 & improv3 your lif3

Posted on September 12, 2021 by Steve Simms

33 effective ways to innovate and improve your life:

1) Cultivate a better attitude.

2) Rotate your schedule.

3) Renovate your thinking.

4) Investigate something positive.

5) Meditate on good things.

6) Activate your goals.

7) Facilitate a new friendship.

8) Motivate yourself to dream.

9) Regulate your desires.

10) Deflate your ego.

11) Allocate time to help other people.

12) Separate from negativity.

13) Replicate the happiness you see in other people.

14) Advocate self-improvement.

15) Elevate your level of hope.

16) Incorporate uplifting ideas into your daily lifestyle.

17) Emulate people who inspire you to be better.

18) Propagate positivity.

19) Celebrate life.

20) Demonstrate kindness.

21) Concentrate on the things that encourage you.

22) Contemplate the good things that are in your life.

23) Eliminate unkindness from your life.

24) Mandate to yourself that you remove any mask that is on your heart.

25) Participate is some new, positive and uplifting activities.

26) Invigorate the people around you.

27) Anticipate good things coming your way.

28) Communicate with compassion.

29) Educate yourself in practical ways to make your life better.

30) Liberate yourself from harmful thoughts and habits.

31) Rehabilitate your broken dreams.

32) Congratulate and encourage people everyday.

33) Commemorate the many good things in your life.

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Attendee-ship or discipleship

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Steve Simms

Much that Christians
Call discipleship
Simply says,
“Come be
A church attendee
Like me.”

Atendee-ship sinks. Discipleship sails through even the worst storms.

Christian discipleship launches Christ-like spiritual heroes. Christian attendee-ship sinks people into spiritual purposelessness. The mask that blocks spiritual growth is the one people wear over their heart. If mega churches produced mega discipleship, God’s love would fill the world!

Churches measure their success by their ability to create regular attendees, not by how many people they train to daily obey Jesus. Jesus doesn’t want a fan club that hears talks about Him, but a training camp that creates athletes who win spiritual victories.

Programmed Christianity is like programmed friendship–routine and shallow. Surely God is worthy of more from you than Sunday church attendance.

Church is a religious meeting that requires nothing from its attendees–no action, learning, commitment, courage, or sacrifice. No matter how good your attendance at church, church will never graduate you and freely release you into God’s spiritual workforce.

Church is a difficult place to fit into if you’re passionate about daily following and obeying the risen Jesus. Most sermons, instead of trying to directly connect people to the living Jesus, attempt to tell people what to think.

In the Bible, Jesus called disciples, not attendees. He never said, “Come and attend my service.”

Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He didn’t say, “Have perfect attendance in church.

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Living like God is real

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Steve Simms

The witness of God in your conscience is real. Following it will free you from the ravages of guilt. If you don’t overcome your own wrongful inclinations, you’ll live as their prisoner.

Until God appears in your heart, it’s easy to overlook Him everywhere else. To ignore or disobey the stirrings of God in your heart is to jump overboard in the middle of the ocean.

Let the living Jesus calm the agitations of your mind and heart. Nothing can really teach you about the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ but to personally experience and daily surrender to Him. The inner demonstrations of Jesus Christ, in human hearts that wait for Him, is absolutely, utterly amazing!

To make room for Jesus: Open your heart. Overcome your wrong desires. Obey Him. Embrace humility. Love everyone. Apologize quickly. If Jesus isn’t your friend, your teacher, your guide, your counselor, your Lord, do you really have a relationship with Him?

Are sermons wasted time? Until we begin to live up to what we already know about Jesus, it does little good to know more.

The race to apologize has few winners. Most people stall until they drop out. The raging power of pride is a poor guide for life.

Whatever a people trust in and look to for support is their God. The only way to seek Jesus is to seek Jesus first. If He’s not first, we’ll be distracted by other things. The fruit of the Spirit only grows in tender-hearted people. (Galatians 5:22.)

Bloody behaviors are far too common when people rely on outward weapons instead of spiritual ones. Trusting the living Jesus to protect you is more powerful than trusting physical weapons.

If you’ve not been taught by the Spirit,
You’ve missed out on the most important teaching
And still need to hear it.

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Bubbles are distracting (and empty, too)

Posted on September 9, 2021 by Steve Simms 
Bubble Voices
If you let
What's said from without
Make you doubt
What your conscience
Says within you,
It will reroute
Your life
Downhill.

Denial is an ongoing series of bubbles (designed to hide the truth). Reality continually pops them.

What we call reality is made up of electrons temporarily spinning around mostly empty space (like a bubble). They disguise themselves as something solid.

Pleasure is based on bubbles that continually burst. Joy is produced by the Spirit of Christ living within you. It never ends.

Trying to find yourself is like trying to catch and keep a bubble in your hands. It’s exhausting and frustrating, but losing yourself is service to others releases joy.

If you don’t like someone’s skin color, take it up with God. That’s a bubble that they had nothing to do with.

Church too often bubble wraps the idea of total commitment to the living Jesus, but Christ wants to burst your religious bubbles! The Bible mixed with prideful boasting creates bubbles that eventually burst.

We often don’t realize
That to choose
What defies
The will of God
Has consequences.

Life is full
Of bubble and burst,
The best and the worst.
Put your hope
In Jesus first!

Lighten your load.
Bring your burdens
To the light.
Receive fresh insight
And delight.

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Christian unbelief in the resurrection of Jesus

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Steve Simms

Religious ceremony
Without living testimony
Is like eating
Plain macaroni.

A lack of believe that Jesus is alive, present, and speaking to them, causes Christians to rely on religion, ceremony, and sermons. Pure water and pure thoughts are more refreshing than murky ones.

Worship that keeps Jesus at a distance doesn’t get to know His daily presence and companionship. If you won’t willingly make room for the living Jesus in your life, He won’t make you let Him in.

Do nothing church that trains people to do nothing but listen has no power. “Faith without works is dead.” Dead religion, crusty ceremony without living testimony, is not what Jesus is about!

Your conscience is a candle that carries the inner light of God. Refuse to snuff it out. God frequently makes me conscience of my conscious and shows me things I don’t really want to know.

The person who forgives first wins the battle to overcome bitterness. People don’t like to listen to angry, agitated people. They’ll hear you better if you’re calm and kind. Live like Jesus is risen and present in all you think, say, and do.

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It’s insightful to compare slavery and abortion

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Steve Simms

Abortion today carries on much of the legacy of American slavery, claiming complete rights over other human lives. With a closer look, slavery and abortion look like cruel twins (fraternal, not identical), but many people find the similarities between slavery and abortion, too uncomfortable to talk about. Still, every argument for the “right to abortion” can be found in the historical arguments used to justify the “right to own slaves.”

Slaveholders and abortion supports had (have) little tolerance for people who disagree with their position. Slavery said that the Free States in America had no right to an opinion on slavery. Abortion says men have no right to an opinion on abortion.

Slavery and abortion don’t want people who disagree with their practices to have the freedom of speech. Slaveholders claimed that other people had no right to care about their victims. Abortion supporters make the same claim.

Both slavery and abortion claim that nobody has a right to criticize their cruelty. They claim that what they do is a private matter. Slavery said that Black lives didn’t matter. Abortion says that prenatal lives don’t matter.

Both slavery and abortion claim to have the right to cruelly disrespect and abuse certain human lives. They both declare that some human life shouldn’t have legal protection.

Slavery and abortion both attacked their opponents as “single issue voters.” They both continually attempt to reduce their victims to a subhuman status.

Both slavery and abortion deny any rights to their victims based on the idea of possession or ownership. Because prenatal human lives and slaves are not free to express the abuse of their life, they have no recourse.

It was said, slaves wouldn’t have a good enough quality of life to justify their freedom. Today, many justify abortion with that approach.

Both slavery and abortion have used Supreme Court decisions to try to try justify their cruelty. Also, many churches and denominations have strongly supported both slavery and abortion.

Slavery appealed to the junk science that “some humans are less evolved than others are.” Abortion appeals to to the false idea that “conception doesn’t begin life.”

When abolitionists began to meddle with slavery, slaveholders cried: “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do with my propery.” When the US tried to make laws against slavery, slaveholders said: “My property, my choice.” History repeats itself. Today the cry is “My body, my choice.”

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Freedom of speech includes the fuller story of American history

Posted on September 6, 2021 by Steve Simms

We can displace
The idea of race
By taking time
To erase
The lines
That divide us.

There are many ways that the human race can be divided into categories. Skin color may be the most illogical one.

Freedom of speech includes the right to talk about the cruelty and brutality of slavery and Jim Crow even though hard hearts don’t want to hear about it. Regardless of our skin color, it would be good if all Americans knew the fuller story of our American history.

The history of slavery is an example of how people can fool themselves into to thinking that barbaric cruelty and brutality are justifiable. To heal our nation’s racial wounds we need a more open understanding of our history. This can help.

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When temptation wins, you lose.

Posted on September 5, 2021 by Steve Simms

A good person never gives in to temptation. I don’t think there’s anybody on the planet who lives that way.

When temptation wins, you lose. Any temptation you don’t overcome, overcomes you.

Wrongful desire is temptation. It’s not identification. Desire doesn’t make you a thief or a cheater. Behavior does.

Some inclinations come from free will; some from the appeal of evil; and some from God. It’s important to recognize the difference.

Temptations loudly proclaim pleasure and partying while hiding the misery they’re carrying. People who resist temptations are often ridiculed by those who wallow in them, but surrendering to temptation is nothing to boast about.

When impure thoughts are allowed to linger in your mind, they work on establishing permanent residence there. The more you surrender to tempting desires, the more control they gain over your life. If you let a temptation entertain you, you’ll enjoy it a short while, but eventually it will slam you into the ground.

If you can’t state your point without unkindness, anger, or profanity, there’s a good chance you’re feeling insecure about it. If that’s the case, perhaps humility can help.

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If the Son is risen, let’s meet to let Him lead us!

Posted on September 4, 2021 by Steve Simms

Attending a Sunday show
About Jesus
Isn’t the same
As gathering
To go with His flow.

Water that doesn’t flow becomes stagnant and unpleasant. So do Christians who don’t let Jesus continually flow thru their heart.

If church belongs to Jesus, why don’t we ever let Him take direct control of a worship service? When we’re unwilling to let Jesus take full and direct control of a church service, we act like we don’t completely believe that He’s alive and present. To not give the living Jesus the opportunity to take control of a church service is to doubt (and/or fear) His resurrection.

If Jesus is really alive, the choice for church isn’t human control or chaos. The choice is human control or Christ’s control.

Christians say that church belongs to Christ, but we want it programed and controlled to fit our comfort zone. To be a Christ-follower is to be frequently inconvenienced by the living Jesus and continually surprised by His joy!

Lord Jesus, the Hope of Glory living within me, help me humbly walk in Your victory.

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