Experience continual Jesus-connection, like grapes on a vine

Posted on April 17, 2021 by Steve Simms

“Abide in the vine.” Be continually aware of the living Jesus. Stay consciously connected to Him.

A part-time awareness of Jesus (on again, off again) falls far short of His command to “Abide in Me.” It’s easy to sit in church and not have a clue that Jesus is alive, powerful, and active in the world today.

“I am with you always.” Christians should never be unaware of being connected to the living, resurrected Jesus.

Jesus said: “I am the light of the world.” To be unaware of light, even for a moment, you have to close your eyes.

“Behold the Lamb of God.” This isn’t intended to be a momentary experience, but a lifestyle of continually focusing on Jesus.

“Looking unto Jesus,” is not about a quick glance, but a captivating gaze that lasts a lifetime. Contemporary, Western Christianity focuses far too much on self-awareness and far too little on Jesus-awareness.

Jesus doesn’t ask you to spend some of your time with Him (a daily “quiet time”). He calls for all of your time.

Jesus doesn’t just give us words and clues about how to follow Him. He offers us His continual presence. He comes to lead us Himself

To follow a guide, you have to stay conscious of his presence. You can’t follow Jesus if you’re unaware of that He’s with you. Until Christians become continually aware of the presence of the living Jesus, we’ll never be very good at abiding in Him.

The Bible shows that God isn’t hiding from us but we’re hiding from Him. Jesus invites us out of hiding, to hang with Him on His vine 24/7/365.

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Guilt isn’t bondage. It’s a call to freedom!

Posted on April 17, 2021 by Steve Simms

Guilt isn’t bondage. Just the opposite. It shows you what’s holding you in bondage and is a guide to freedom.

Guilt is a product of your own behavior. It’s not caused by other people’s opinions of your behavior. It’s better to avoid guilt by not doing things that cause it, than to jump in the middle of it and hope it will go away.

If you’re not in any way responsible for something, if you had nothing to do with it, any guilt you feel about it is false. False guilt is best avoided.

When guilt is covered up, it doesn’t heal. To refuse to admit when you’re wrong and to refuse to make things right is to carry guilt unnecessarily. For every lie told, someone is guilty of falsifying the truth.

Guilt is a reminder to do better, a call to make things right. It’s not supposed to be an ongoing feeling of condemnation. To ignore feelings of guilt is like choosing to stay in bed thru a fire alarm. Guilt is best avoided, but if you have stepped into it, humbly asking for and receiving forgiveness is the way out.

When you do something that causes you to feel guilty, you make a problem worse. Trying to rationalize away guilt thru self-justification and shifting the blame to others is cowardly.

Guilt is a burglar alarm, alerting you that bad behavior is stealing your inner peace. Bad behavior and guilt are Siamese twins. Guilt will fade away if you stop doing what’s causing it.

The remedy for guilt isn’t denial. It’s forgiveness that comes thru apologizing, making any amends you can, and behaving better.

Like the lines on the high way, your conscience tries to keep you safe on life’s journey.

Avoid guilt. Always choose kindness instead of cruelty.

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Chirp, tweet, & cheer up

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Steve Simms

Tweet, chirp,
And cheer up,
Like a bird
Singing on a branch.

Glad words can interrupt your misery and point you to victory. When you talk to yourself, it helps if you’re kind.

Life is full of overlooked beauty that is patiently waiting for you to notice it and to let it inspire you. Every time you start to feel discouraged, put it off until tomorrow.

A little cleaning and redecorating can make a home bright and refreshing. It can do the same for your mind.

There’s much that’s good in your life. It’s hard to be sad if you stay focused on the good.

There are solutions to your problems
And even if you can’t solve them,
Time will.

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What is your “Jesus awareness number”?

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Steve Simms

The more aware you become of the presence of Jesus, the more you will be impacted by His power. Christians too often go offline with Jesus and go through daily life with no “innernet” connection. Then they wonder why they don’t feel His presence.

By focusing your heart on the living Jesus, you can gaze at Him without physically seeing Him. (Although my eyes have never seen the living Jesus, I continually realize that He’s present and working inside me.) If you keep the living Jesus as the center of your inner life, your outward circumstances will have little impact on you.

Here’s a quick assessment. Check your awareness of the presence of Jesus: 1–You don’t sense His presence at all; to 10–You’re overwhelmed by His presence. Take a minute and ponder this. Then write down and look at your personal “awareness of Jesus assessment number?”

Here are a few ways (that have worked for me) that you can also use to raise your your number:

  • Humble yourself. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
  • Continually talk to and talk to Jesus.
  • Seek Jesus as the number one priority in your life.
  • Repent every time you become aware of sin in your heart, mind, words, or actions.
  • Read Scripture everyday with an open heart.
  • Pay attention to and obey inner promptings from Jesus.
  • Hang out with people who are aware of and excited about the living Jesus. (Pray together, open up to each other, hold each other accountable, minister to one another.)
  • Pray in tongues through out the day.
  • Tell people about things that Jesus has taught you and done in your life.
  • When your attention wanders, bring it back to Jesus.
  • Frequently repeat the Jesus prayer in your mind: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
  • Continually express love and adoration to Jesus. Put on worship music and passionately sing to Jesus, through the words of the songs. Express your own praise to Him.
  • Find and read books that set your heart on fire with love for Jesus.
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Fishing within for positive thoughts

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Steve Simms

We all have healthy, uplifting, and creative thoughts. However, if we don’t begin to explore and express them, we remain mostly unaware of them. Search for the good things in your mind.

Life fish in a river, hope-filled thoughts flow unnoticed, below the surface of your mind. Bad thoughts will jump out at you, but often you have to patiently fish for good thoughts. Bait your hook for hope!

Find ideas that stir your soul and fill you with hope. Keep them in your awareness and you’ll overflow with amazement and gratitude.

Look beyond problems and pain. Don’t let them drown out your awareness of the good things in your life.

As humans, we don’t have to obey our feelings or desires. We can choose to resist and overcome them.

Listening to your conscience is a courageous step toward self-awareness. It tells you healing truth, even when you don’t want to hear it.

Become more aware of love. “Love is love,” yet it’s not sex. Love is humility, honesty, self-control, purity, apology, sacrifice, (and even kindness toward your enemies).

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Jesus isn’t my copilot . . .

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Steve Simms

Lordship means that Jesus can’t be your copilot. It means to let go of the controls and let Jesus alone be your pilot. (Jesus, pilot me! I don’t know how to fly this thing called life!)

Whatever or whoever you obey is your Lord. Humans obey many different Lords, such as: feelings, desires, opinions, habits, money, pride, leaders, nations, hate, etc. Instead, you can let the living Jesus be Lord.

Many Christians claim Jesus as their Savior, but not as their Lord. They want to call the shots and go to Heaven on their own terms.

To make Jesus your Lord is to obey Him, rather than your own emotions, desires, or opinions. No one can run your life as effectively as your Creator. That’s why surrender to the living Lord Jesus brings indescribable joy.

The Lordship of Jesus begins in your thoughts and desires. Unless you let Him rule those, your actions will be beyond His control.

Lordship begins when you allow the living Jesus to exchange your will for His. Jesus becomes your Lord when you let Him replace self as the decision maker in your life and rule over all your desires and feelings. Unless our will, emotions, and appetites are surrendered to the authority of the living Jesus, He isn’t our Lord.

Early Christians were persecuted because they said, “Jesus is Lord,” and refused to say “Caesar is Lord.”

There’s no question whether Jesus will show up in your life. The question is: Will you surrender to His Lordship when He does?

May Christ the Lord be adored, not just with words, but with obedience:

It's easier to pray 
To the Lord 
Than it is to obey 
And surrender to His will. 
But no matter what we say,
He's not truly our Lord 
If we don't follow His way.
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Christianity is overanalyzed and under lived.

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Steve Simms

Very few people study the chemistry of their food. They just open up and enjoy it. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” You can learn to recognize the presence of Jesus and realize His reality, not just occasionally, but continually.

Analysis dissects a bird. Joy savors its song. Christianity is overanalyzed and under lived. It needs more practical, how-to, interactive, hands-on training, that goes beyond just listening to sermons.

Church too often focuses on teaching about God, while neglecting to train people to daily live out what they learn. Discipleship is about daily living out Christianity, not about trying to understand it theologically.

To make Christianity analytical and political (mind and hierarchy focused) is to miss out on the spontaneity of the living Jesus. We have made a church service merely sitting thru analysis without implementation–a group of people hearing the word without doing it.

The Bible presents one of life’s most amazing opportunities–to build your life on the wisdom of Jesus and His early followers. I try not to analyze the Bible, but rather to read it daily with an open heart and let it analyze and change me.

Any Jesus that can be controlled by a church or by an individual is a counterfeit Jesus. When love for Jesus shifts from your heart to your mind, it slips from reality into memory.

Bad memories are like mud on your shoes. If you step out of the mud and start walking on dry ground, the mud eventually falls off.

Christianity, 
Live it up, 
Breaking free 
From the sin 
And analysis
That holds you down.
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Forgetting to remember the splendor

Posted on April 11, 2021 by Steve Simms 
Christians have forgotten 
How to meditate 
On God's splendor.
We've forgotten 
How to demonstrate 
The awesome presence 
Of the living Jesus.

We've forgotten 
To remember that:

The body of Christ 
Doesn't function 
Organizationally 
But relationally. 
All the members 
Are supposed to 
Listen to Jesus, 
The living Head,  
So that we all can do 
What Christ 
Tells us to. 

(Search: Beyond Church Ekklesia.)
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Let the body of Christ demonstrate the living Jesus like a vacuum cleaner salesperson demonstrate a vacuum

Posted on April 11, 2021 by Steve Simms

A vacuum cleaner salesman can’t show you his demonstration if someone talks over him and you ignore him. Neither can Jesus. The body of Christ is supposed to demonstrate the living Jesus to the world!

It’s alive, not contrived! The body of Christ is organic, not organizational. The body of Christ is relationship, not ritual–family, not religious forms–people united heart to heart, not programs! As people let the living Jesus daily rule inside them, they discover that they have a powerful connection with each other.

The living Jesus is the only Head of the body of Christ. All people who belong to Him are members of His body. They belong to the kingdom of God and are called to be led by the Spirit, not by their own desire. Though they may differ in their maturity levels, all who have been adopted into the family of God have the same status.

Christians have looked too low for guidance. We have looked to churches and preachers, instead of to the living, resurrected Jesus. Words spoken head to head are frequently misunderstood, but those spoken heart to heart bring caring connection. Let Jesus speak to your heart!

There is only one group of Jesus-followers, the body of Christ, whose members are called out of all nations, to obey to Him. It’s an invisible, yet indivisible group. As church split into thousands of independent groups, it rejected “the ministry of reconciliation”–Jesus’ call to be peacemakers. (Unless the living Jesus is submitted to and obeyed as the literal Head of the body of Christ, Christians will remain divided.)

Too often Christians are required to be seen in church, but not allowed to be heard in church. Testimonies are seldom allowed.

Idols aren’t just stone. Religious organizations can also be idols when they distract our focus from the risen Jesus. However, when you’re aware of the presence of the living Jesus, prayer is as easy as breathing.

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Did Jesus say, “Don’t tread on Me?”

Posted on April 11, 2021 by Steve Simms 
Jesus could have said, 
"Don't tread on Me!" 
He could have called 
Angels to overthrow Rome 
And the religious leaders 
Who wanted Him dead. 
Instead He was led away, 
To die on the cross 
For you and for me. 
Today hear Him say, 
"Follow Me," 
And walk in His way.
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