Listening to Jesus on Easter Sunday

Posted on April 4, 2021 by Steve Simms

The Resurrection means
That Jesus can be
More than heard about.
He can be heard!

Waking up Easter morning 2021, I sensed Jesus saying: “Listen, Steve. Hear My voice speaking within you with words, images, and impressions.” So I did. This is what came to me.

“If death couldn’t keep Me down, nothing else can either!”

“Much that you listen to will harm you, but listen to Me and you will heal from within.”

“Read the Scriptures with an open heart and I will make the words burn within you as you do.”

“I hear your monologue, but we won’t have dialogue until you begin to regularly listen to Me.”

“Since I’m alive, I can speak. If you’re alive, you can hear Me.”

“There’s no reason to blindly assume My empty tomb. Open you’re heart and I will show you that I’m alive.”

“On Easter you hear people say that I’m alive. Now hear it from Me, for yourself.”

“Since I’m not stuck in a Jerusalem tomb, we can hang out together. Let’s meetup.”

“My sheep hear My voice.” (I’ve read that somewhere, have you?)

“You’ve heard that I said: ‘Love your enemies. Bless those curse you.’ How blessed you will be if you do it.”

“Many Christians act like they can’t hear me for themselves, and rely on someone else to tell them what I said.”

“If you don’t believe I am speaking today, you’ll have a difficult time recognizing My voice.”

“Follow Me the way children play follow the leader.”

(An observation: When it comes to listening to the living Jesus, too many people have heard immunity!)

I heard about Jesus.
Then one day
I heard Him
And He herded me
Into His presence.

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Choose compassion. Cancel cruelty.

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Steve Simms

Compassion wants to relieve suffering. Hatred wants to cause it. Anybody can hate, but it takes great courage to consistently show compassion.

Irritation sees people as a drain on your energy. Compassion sees them as an opportunity to show kindness.

We need more compassionate words; fewer combative words. Sincere compassion, shared with angry people, curtails their anger.

Everybody is somebody who matters and is worthy of your compassion! Nobody’s insignificant.

Because compassion feels another’s pain, it’s uncomfortable and too often avoided. Compassion requires courage!

Everyone has the ability to feel compassion. We can allow it to flow from our heart, or we can block it. A heart without compassion is a river without water.

The less you allow compassion to flow from your heart, the more hardhearted you become. When you let your heart out of its box, you’ll feel compassion for and connection with other people.

If you’re lonely, reach out and begin to show people compassion. Then your loneliness won’t last long.

Compassion happens when your heart connects with someone’s pain. Jesus was “moved with compassion.” Any form of Christianity that lacks compassion is counterfeit.

Check out my practical handbook about how to choose compassion and to cancel cruelty: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind. Thank you.

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Jesus’ Resurrection is nothing to be lukewarm about

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Steve Simms

When I started hanging out with the risen Jesus, I found going to church to be a regression from my daily experience with Him. Church, like the Bible Pharisees, seems to see the living Jesus as a threat to the human control of religion.

Church services are designed for lukewarmness, not for holy passion and spiritual fire. I find testimony (what the living Jesus is doing) to be far more powerful than ceremony (what we do to commemorate Him).

Church has tamed the resurrection of Jesus by presenting it as an annual Sunday morning lecture, tradition, and sentimentalism. It’s time to let the risen Jesus take control all year long! His Resurrection is nothing to be lukewarm about.

It’s important to know Jesus, not just as a point of information, but by personally experiencing Him day by day. Do you regularly hang out with the resurrected Jesus?

Here’s my handbook on how to daily experience and enjoy the risen Jesus: The Joy Of Early Christianity.

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Life is full of boomerangs called consequences

Posted on April 1, 2021 by Steve Simms

Life’s a boomerang. It takes what we think, say, and do, and throws it back as consequences. To blame people for your choices is to proclaim that you’re their puppet.

Your consequences follow your behaviors. They don’t cause them. If you don’t choose to motivate yourself, you’ll miss out on much life has to offer.

Life gives us the freedom to create consequences, but not the freedom to easily escape them. You can’t outrun consequences. You eventually run into their arms. Lying is usually a lazy, cowardly attempt to avoid circumstances.

Disapproval comes when you violate someone’s belief system. Guilt comes when you violate your own belief system. Consequences clearly demonstrate that all actions, words, and thoughts are not equal.

Many of our problems are the consequences of our choices. Wrong choices cause their own punishment; wise choices, their own rewards. Both are called consequences. When facing a self-caused mess of consequences, remember that regret, remorse, and repentance are much more effective than denial.

Freedom creates bondage when it makes choices that lead to bad habits or addiction. When you create storms, you should expect a lot of wind and rain in your life. Cruelty is never a good choice.

Consequences don’t just happen to you. They’re caused by your choices. You can always choose to create better consequences for tomorrow than you created for today.

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Christ in a pew isn’t the hope of glory

Posted on April 1, 2021 by Steve Simms

The most powerful person in the room, when Christians gather, is the living Jesus, yet we act like He’s not even there. Christians know how to stare at a preacher. Now let’s dare to be aware of Jesus’ real presence and take Him everywhere!

The Bible never says, “Christ in a pew, the hope of glory.” It says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

Too much Christianity has been dulled-down to a doctrinal fact-sheet–a creed that people don’t heed. The living Jesus has been “creedosized” (turned into doctrine). Oh, that we would “realize” Him (experience Him as real)! Christian creeds that don’t help people directly connect with the living Jesus, aren’t doing their job.

Jesus isn’t a fact-sheet to bind-up
And file-away in your mind.
He’s the living Savior you need to find!

You can’t be Spirit-led,
If Jesus is just
Dead information in your head.

We need to realize:
Jesus is more
Than what we see
With our eyes.
He’s alive!

Without a salvation testimony,
Christian creed and ceremony
Lacks Resurrection reality!

Christianity is about the dead Jesus rising!
Not about cool church advertising!

A church’s creed and organizing
And even it’s advertising
Can create moralizing,
But not Spirit-led energizing.

Too many Christians
Feed on creeds
But starve
For lack of Jesus-led deeds.

The modern Christian creed:
Go to church, brag about grace,
Then live life, at your own pace.

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Founding confusion . . .

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Steve Simms

What an irony
That America’s founders
Called tea-tax tyranny
But slavery a right!

The cruelest tax ever levied was human slavery. It stole everything from people and then sold them as animals.

The big elephant in American history: Many of our founders and heroes were human traffickers.

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To surrender to temptation is to give away your freedom.

Posted on March 30, 2021 by Steve Simms

Every temptation is an attack on your freedom. Temptation tries to override your ability to say no and to enslave you to its command. Freedom requires continual resistance to temptation. To surrender to it leads to a downward spiral of ever increasing bondage.

Yielding to temptation never frees you from it. Every time you give in to it, a temptation gets a stronger hold on you. The greatest threats to your personal freedom are temptations.

Temptations make bondage look appealing and demonstrate that we don’t really want freedom as much as we say that we do. They try to override your freedom by compelling you to do something that you would rather not do. Temptation decorates a prison and makes it look like a party.

Temptation is a trap set to steal your freedom. The bait of bondage can appear beautiful and lead us away from freedom. When you step in to enjoy temptation’s bait, boom! You’re caught in it’s trap! To swallow the bait of bondage is to be fished out of the living waters of freedom.

If you seriously want to “fight for freedom” then resist and overcome temptation. To give in to temptation is to give up freedom.

Unwanted habits reveal the absence of freedom. Freedom comes from resisting temptation, not from surrendering to it.

Although people like to talk about freedom, we often prefer being in bondage to pleasure. Comfort often deceives us. It’s hard to think outside a comfortable box.

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Without inner freedom, we aren’t really free

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Steve Simms

Inner chains matter. We can’t truly be free if we’re bound by them. Inner freedom requires the ability to say no to anything that enslaves your thoughts or feelings.

When you’re dishonest, you’re not free. You’re in bondage to the lies you tell.

Calling opinions facts isn’t freedom. It’s deception!

Freedom is often presented as doing what ever you feel like, but without self-discipline, there is only bondage. If you’re stuck in certain feelings or thoughts or behaviors, remember that being stuck isn’t freedom! If you’re not able to keep thoughts you don’t like, out of your mind, you’re not free.

The freedom of thought is worthless, if you allow your thinking to be controlled by feelings, and desires. It’s dangerous to use your freedom of speech if you ignore your freedom of thought.

Human nature, no matter how compelled or tormented from within, tries to convince itself that it is inwardly free. Signs of inner bondage are everywhere: worry, harmful habits, bitterness, envy, ego, lust, anxiety, anger, discouragement.

No government can grant you or guarantee you inner freedom. You have to win that for yourself. There is one right that no government or person can take away from you–the right to think your own thoughts.

True freedom is when you control your thoughts, desires, and emotions, instead of being controlled by them. No person, government, or emotion can control your thinking, if you will internally take control of your freedom of thought.

Inner freedom is to be no longer compelled or tormented by unwanted desires, feelings, or thoughts. It’s impossible without self-discipline and self-control. It doesn’t just happen.

Inner freedom doesn’t depend on outward circumstances. Political freedom without freedom from inner torment and compulsion, is incomplete. Inner freedom, like political freedom, isn’t free. It requires an ongoing fight to defend it against mental and emotional bondage.

Self is a prison that incarcerates the soul behind the strong walls of feelings and wants. When a thought forces its way into your mind, you’re not free. Inner freedom requires that we untangle self from the control of unwanted thoughts, desires, and emotions.

Every person is a minority of one. Everybody is unique! Pursue inner freedom. It’s up to you to bring freedom to your thinking and emotions. No person can do that for you. Only you can set the rules for how you use your brain.

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Jesus entered Jerusalem offering true freedom, not freedom from Rome

Posted on March 28, 2021 by Steve Simms

The Palm Sunday crowd wanted Jesus to be political. He refused. They lost hope in “the hope of glory.” On Palm Sunday, Jesus faced off with politics and religion. They both rejected Him and teamed up to silence Him.

On Palm Sunday people expected freedom from Rome. Instead, Jesus offered freedom from slavery to desires, feelings and thoughts.

The angry crowd yelling, “Crucify Him,” showed that much of Palm Sunday’s cheering, was fake faith, based on false expectations. Jesus also exposed much of it to be hype, by openly weeping over Jerusalem as He approached it because He knew it would be wiped out by Rome in 70 AD. Conquerors don’t cry during a triumphal entry, but Jesus also wept because He was grieved that the people didn’t comprehend Him.

Palm Sunday didn’t lead to Jesus overthrowing Rome as many expected the Messiah to do. Instead, about 40 years later, Jerusalem revolted and was totally destroyed as Jesus had predicted.

Conquerors were welcomed with palm branches. Jesus was expected to triumph over Rome. Instead He conquered death! Jesus didn’t enter Jerusalem on a conqueror’s war horse but on a common man’s donkey. Being an earthly king (or president) wasn’t what Jesus had in mind when He rode into Jerusalem. The King that Jerusalem thought would confront the Romans was crucified by Rome, without putting up any fight.

Religious leaders often look to the government. In Jerusalem, they used Rome to prevent people from following the living Jesus.

Wanting Jesus as a political savior, the people cheered Him, but when He didn’t support their politics, they yelled, “Crucify Him!

Palm Sunday,
Cheering crowd;
Good Friday,
Jeering crowd:
Follow Jesus,
Not a crowd.

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Freedom thoughts (set number two)

Posted on March 28, 2021 by Steve Simms

Discouragement is a major attack against freedom. Discouraged people aren’t free to pursue their dreams.

If you’re in bondage to feelings and desires, you’re not free, no matter what kind of government rules in your country.

Some freedoms you have to fight for, yourself–freedom from worry, from fear, from discouragement, from hate, from ego, etc.

When freedom ignores the voice of conscience, it gets lost in compulsive thoughts and behaviors.

As long as we are driven and compelled by desires and feelings that we can’t (or won’t control) we’re not free.

Although we think we’re free, if we’re inwardly compelled to think, say, and/or do things against our will, we’re not.

The greatest liberty is freedom from the inner tyranny of our thoughts, feelings, compulsions, and habits.

When a destructive habit, a tormenting thought, or a compulsive craving, loses its control over you, that’s freedom!

Freedom without self-control is an oxymoron. If you’re not in control of yourself, you’re in bondage to someone or to something.

Freedom is the ability to resist and overcome temptation (to exercise self-control), not an excuse for surrendering to compulsions.

When we give in to temptation we give up our freedom to resist it. If you can’t say no to something, it’s your master and has taken away your freedom.

If we don’t have the freedom to forgive and show kindness, we’ll carry the chains of anger, bitterness, and hatred.

Ego is a great enemy of inner freedom. It traps us in a prison of self-focus.

Freedom of thought–the ability to resist unwanted thoughts and keep them out of your mind–is a great liberty!

The freedom to find and continually enjoy heart-felt happiness, is much more freeing than the mere “pursuit of happiness.”

We need more freedom of expression–the inner freedom to express kindness rather than anger, help rather than hate!

Inner freedom matters. Without it we’re dominated by desires, tormented by thoughts, and controlled by cravings.

Inner freedom isn’t free. You have to fight the demons that assail you with enslaving thoughts, feelings, and desires.

When our will is dominated by our desires, we often find that we’re inwardly compelled to do things we don’t really want to do.

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