Beyond self-care & self-love, we can find self-reality

Posted on October 9, 2020 by Steve Simms

Even with great eyesight, people with blind hearts won’t see clearly. When truth threatens their ego, people often call it a lie. Usually the hardest lies to spot are the ones hiding in your heart.

The most important evil for you to overcome, is the evil in your own heart. A major flaw in human nature, is the tendency to sanitize self, while demonizing those who disagree with us. ‘

Believing that conservative and liberal are the only two approaches to politics, is narrow minded. I’d like to see a candidate speak from the heart, instead of from hostility or programming. Conservatives and liberals who won’t hear and obey their conscience are very dangerous.

Any thought or feeling that causes you to want to harm (or insult) people because of their beliefs, is wrong. A democracy settles disagreements by voting, not by insulting and/or fighting with their fellow citizens.

Self-orbiting Christianity never escapes the gravity of human nature. When human nature is given over to its own desires, it can say and do terrible things. When we allow the risen Jesus to rule within us, He gives us power to resist our rebellious human nature.

I like thinking. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. If you can see the colorful leaves of Fall as beautiful, you can also see humanity’s colors as beautiful.

In the 2020, USA, Vice Presidential Debate, the candidates were ask their view of abortion. Here’s my answer: Abortion, like suicide, is a tragic and wasteful loss of human life. When human life is disrespected in any of its stages, it will eventually be disrespected in all of them.

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Idols of the heart, church, & Christians

Posted on October 8, 2020 by Steve Simms

Idolatry isn’t just an ancient thing. It’s all around us today. Modern idols are hard to detect. Most go unnoticed.

Anytime I choose my will instead of God’s, I’m making a idol. When beliefs about God, become a substitute for God’s presence, that’s idolatry.

When people get hostile and call other people evil, it usually means that their idols feel threatened. However, it’s hard to see people as a threat if you let your heart connect with them.

Idols are often good things that override the ultimate thing in life–God’s love! They are sneaky. They can secretly set up in your heart and control you. Anything that causes God’s love for people, to leave your heart, is an idol. The more we surrender to the risen Jesus, the more we love everybody.

Modern Christianity has embraced and supported many substitutes for the risen Jesus. When you close your heart to people who disagree with you, you deny the love of Jesus. Idols in a stony heart distort Christian spirituality more than idols made of stone.

Anything that blocks your view of the living Jesus, is an idol. Open our eyes, Jesus, so we can continually see Your presence and reality.

We are made in God’s image. To try to make Him in our image is idolatry.

Pride uses idols to prop itself up. Humility surrenders to God for help and strength. Pride is the worst idol because it enthrones self as the ultimate ruler.

It’s hard to think outside society’s cultural, entertainment, and political idols. Political power, too often, becomes a substitute for God’s kingdom and power.

When any human leader is seen as a godlike figure, a nation is in trouble. To maintain democracy, we need to avoid making an idol out of any politician.

Jesus introduced the kingdom of God. Let no human government replace it in your heart. Our idols (religious and nonreligious) are poor substitutes for the living Jesus.

Following a church system and following the living Jesus, are not the same thing. Church lectures people. Early Christianity cultivated an environment where the living Jesus changed people from within. Titles, religious lectures, and rituals are poor substitutes for the risen Jesus. The slightest encounter with the living Jesus is more powerful than the best sermon.

People don’t need weekly lectures about their best friend. Jesus is my best friend. It’s liberating and exhilarating to connect with the living Jesus un-institutionally.

I’m continually astonished by the living Jesus. When I look at how Jesus died, I’m cross-examined and deeply humbled by His love for me.

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Avoid heart-stench

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Steve Simms

Jammed shut hearts are never happy. They keep joy out.

More harm is being spread by the neglect of heart sanitizer than by the neglect of hand sanitizer. Like the body, the human heart needs to be continually cleaned. True sanity comes from a sanitized heart.

Few people walk around with pungent body odor, but carrying around heart-stench seems to be becoming common. Bodywash is good; mouthwash is too, but heart-wash is far more important. Open up to humility, honesty, kindness, repentance, and forgiveness.

If words harden your heart or enrage you, choose not to hear, read, or repeat them. I search for books filled with heart-nourishing words and read them with joy, passion, and awe.

I fill my mind with heart-softening words and hear (or read) them with delight, but turn away from heart-hardening words. There are too many heart-hardening words, but far too few heart-nourishing words.

The living Jesus specializes in cleaning hearts, but you have to bring Him your dirty laundry. Like a dog, I can’t scrub myself clean, so I let my Master, the living Jesus, regularly wash my heart.

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Words that provoke hate are never great

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Steve Simms

Hate won’t make
America great.
It will make it
Disintegrate.

It’s not right to be impolite. Every human deserves respect. Confident people are polite to everyone. Insecurity causes people to be impolite.

To polarize the people of a nation releases much indignation. Mounting hostility is building mountains of divisiveness in America. Prompt de-escalation is needed. You can’t be happy and hostile at the same moment. I prefer to be happy.

The “all” is too SMall when “liberty and justice for ALL” leaves some people out. Humanity isn’t multiracial. Together we all belong to the one human race.

Truth can be told in a calm, peaceful way. Lies need to be hyped up. Appreciative words (“apprecianity”) create a much healthier mental and emotional environment than disgusted words (profanity).

It’s time for Christian Racial Togetherness that is biblical and Christ-centered. That’s the best CRT. Learn more about it. Search for: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.

Christianity that doesn’t put Christ first, is as messed up as “ianityChrist.”

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Choose recreational kindness — unkindness is a terrible common denominator

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Steve Simms

A kindness deficiency is causing much pain and creating many problems. Please contribute all the kindness you can to help overcome it. Humankind needs human kindness. If I had a political slogan it would be: Be kind and fair to everybody.

Try some recreational kindness today. It’s a lot of fun to be nice to people.

When unkindness becomes a nation’s common denominator, it’s in major trouble. It hard to like yourself if you dislike human beings. (After all, you are one.) Human life is precious and temporary. Perhaps we should handle it with care. Hurting humans need healing, not hate.

Human beings can’t be divided into camps of good and evil. We all contain both. All attempts to deny the humanity of certain groups of people, are lies. There’s something good, something delightful in every person. Find and appreciate it.

I’m often inspired by people who look different than me; sometimes bored by those who look similar to me. Risk getting to know people you feel uncomfortable around. It will enrich your life.

Uncomfortable truth is easier to deny than to face. Admit the truth anyway. If you don’t like liars, every untruth you tell will diminish your self-esteem.

When political debate abounds in lies, deceit, and accusation, a nation’s in trouble. To deny the light of truth, is to choose to walk in darkness. Telling the truth about history isn’t unpatriotic. When people get political power, there’s strong temptation to compromise their morals in order to hold on to that power.

100% completely moral, fair, and honest people, would make any system just. However, unjust, dishonest, immoral people will corrupt any form of government.

The Bible exposes the worst of Israel’s history. History looks different asking, What really happened? not, What makes me feel good?

The American Founding Fathers knew that corruption in human hearts was the main problem in government. That’s why they created checks & balances to keep any individual from having complete power. (Many of them had complete power over enslaved people on their plantations, so they had first hand experience of how cruelty could take over if not checked by some authority.)

Being a Christian makes me want to talk about the living Jesus, not about politics. My choice isn’t on any ballot. I choose to surrender to and obey the living Jesus.

People of quality don’t oppose the concept of genuine equality. Some people get angry when hurting people express their pain. Compassion would be a better response. Surely “freedom of speech” includes being able to peacefully express your pain without being judged as “unpatriotic.”

Much of what people say and do is an attempt to avoid the voice of their conscience. God’s grace doesn’t nullify your conscience, but activates it, so that you’re intently aware how much you need Christ’s mercy.

The Jews wanted the Messiah as a political leader, but Jesus came to change hearts. Jesus came to transform people from within, not to reform government systems.

Left and right
Are out of my sight.
I’m called to be a light
For the risen Jesus Christ.

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True greatness (Why be great in a 2nd rate way?)

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Steve Simms

True greatness doesn’t demand allegiance. It inspires it. Forcing others to do your will isn’t greatness, inspiring them to do what’s right is.

To be truly great is to be unwilling to hate. It recognizes human dignity in everyone. It never demeans or demonizes. It’s always kind.

True greatness isn’t conquering others. It’s overcoming the evil with yourself. Fake greatness is selfish; true greatness is selfless.

True greatness is listening with compassion, not lecturing with adamance. It has no need or use for self-exaltation.

True greatness belittles no one! It is willing to be little in the eyes of others, but unwilling to belittle them. It recognizes the greatness in others, even when it disagrees with them. True greatness listens to understand, not to criticize.

True greatness is love and kindness and treating all people as your equal. It is to live your life with high ideals, fairness, and integrity.

True greatness is to seek understanding, walk in the light, and do what’s kind and right. True greatness overflows with gratitude, always appreciating what others have done.

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Song lyrics about the immanence (closeness) of the living Jesus

Posted on September 24, 2020 by Steve Simms

* “He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own.”

* “‘Fear not I am with thee, peace be still,’ Jesus whispers sweet and low.”

* “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er.”

* “Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.”

* “And then the hand of Jesus touched me, and now I’m no longer the same.”

* “Just a closer walk with Thee, grant it Jesus, let it be.”

* “The longer I serve Him the sweeter He grows.”

* “Jesus is the answer for the world today, above Him there’s no other, Jesus is the way.”

* “Why don’t you look into Jesus, He’s got the answer.”

* “He touched me, O, He touched me, and O, the glory that floods my soul.”

* “O, come let us adore, Him.”

* ” And then I cried, ‘Dear Jesus, come and heal my broken spirit,’ and somehow Jesus came and brought to me the victory.”

* “Jesus, take the wheel.”

* “On Christ, the solid rock, I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

* “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.”

* “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold.”

* “Give me Jesus, you can have all this world, but give me Jesus.”

* “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

–If you can think of other songs that illustrate the immanence (closeness) of Jesus, list them in comments.

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Offense-baiting

Posted on September 24, 2020 by Steve Simms

Much that people say today is designed to be offensive. Don’t take their bait. When people try to offend you, don’t let them (no matter what they say or do)! Be unofendable!

To expect other people to think and act like you, opens the door to you being offended. You can disagree with someone’s beliefs, words, and/or actions, without taking offense. To fill your heart with offense makes no sense.

Pride is quick to take offense. Humility rises above it.

To avoid taking offense assume people have the best intentions. Be a reverse paranoid. We have the right to not be offended, to love people even when we disagree with them.

It’s easy to not be offended by something someone has written. Just don’t read it.

Some people get offended because someone’s words confirm guilt they already feel. Offence happens because of the way an offended person interprets things.

If we talk about what encourages us, instead of what offends us, we’ll be happier. Many people get offended when they’ve not even been harmed. Try not to do that.

We all have the right to express our opinions, but no one has to listen or agree. However, if you make your point in the least offensive way, you’ll be more likely to be heard.

Sometimes, when we’re offended, it’s driven by our wounded pride, not by truth. Instead of taking offense at hurtful words, we can ignore them, or respond with love.

We have the right to criticize people’s ideas, but not their physical characteristics Physical characteristics tell you nothing about a person’s character. People who feel they’re treated as inferior, aren’t offended by the idea of equality.

Being kind can change someone’s mind. Rudeness just makes them defensive. To respond to people with kindness, you need to give up your “right” to be offended.

“Love one another,”
Isn’t a suggestion.
Are you showing love?
That’s the question.

Hearts are breaking,
Society’s shaking.
We need to love,
Not push & shove.

“Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” –Jesus Christ. Love doesn’t refuse to listen to hurting people.

What we’re seeing in America is not sudden anger, but many generations of pain. America needs more than religisized politics. We need people who actively demonstrate the love of the living Jesus.

When hurting people desperately try to cope and heal, it doesn’t an ideology reveal. The answer to pain-based anger isn’t insults & force. It’s compassionate listening.

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The immanence of the living Jesus

Posted on September 24, 2020 by Steve Simms

If you refuse to hear and obey the living Jesus, hearing a man preach about Him won’t do you much good. However, directly experiencing the immanence of Jesus, releases awe, healing, and ardent celebration. (If you get caught up in aporia, you miss out on euphoria.)

If you don’t know the living Jesus as the great transforming Presence in your life, you’ve missed the point of Christianity. Much Christianity is missing the immanence of the living Jesus. Jesus isn’t an abstract principle but a living Person who wants to interact with you. Not only is Jesus sovereign and eminent, He wants to live in you and be immanent.

When Jesus proclaimed, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” He announced His immanence. “Christ in you–daily experiencing that reality is the immanence of the risen Jesus.

When you let the living Jesus actively work in your heart and mind, that’s immanence. Within myself, I experience the living Jesus as strongly as I experience my own consciousness. Let Emmanuel (“God with us”) demonstrate His immanence in your daily life.

Many Christians have never seen the living Jesus lead even one meeting without a preacher or a program. The living Jesus wants to make the kingdom of God an imminent reality, not a distant dream, talked about by preachers.

To help you experience Christ as immanent, check out my two handbooks to Christ in you: Beyond Church Ekklesia and The Joy Of Early Christianity. Thank you.

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Even when life is unfair, try not to be a Pharisee

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Steve Simms

Beware. Controlling, religious Pharisees aren’t unique to the first century. In the Bible, religious leaders felt threatened by Jesus. Many still do today. (The Pharisees wanted to keep the living Jesus from disrupting their religion. Do we?)

The Pharisees converted faith into a mere formula to follow, but Jesus says, “Follow Me.” The Pharisees saw their religion as entitlement, but saw the living Jesus as a threat to it.

To be proud and forceful about your opinions, but resist the living Jesus, is to be a Pharisee. The Pharisees were very religious, but they had no room for the living Jesus. They wanted Him dead.

Pharisees believe that they’re good people. Biblical Christians know we’re not. Pharisees are proud of their holiness. Biblical Christians are humbled by our lack of it.

The Bible clearly shows that Jesus didn’t support the status quo. He disrupted it. Pharisees were amazingly good at religious activities, but bad at following Jesus.

I love to see Christians interact as the body of Christ, not just sit and passively listen to one speaker. Worship that refuses to welcome spontaneity, quenches the Holy Spirit. Christ-followers are called to be spiritually living stones, not religious dry bones.

Today we have the Bible and we have direct access to the living Jesus. We can move beyond prepackaged and controlled religion. I’m always amazed at how everyday, the living Jesus is actively working inside me.

The kingdom of God is a demonstratable reality when King Jesus is present and obeyed. Biblical Christianity is so much more than pastor-focus and formal religious status. Unfortunately, I think today’s church might welcome the ancient Pharisees as their strongest members.

When pastor-focus
Caught us,
Christianity lost sight of
The living Jesus.

If we ignore the living Jesus,
We’ll miss out
On what Christianity
Is all about.

Christians aren’t called
To be proud Pharisees,
But humble servants
Of “the least of these.”

“In our day, the scribes and Pharisees would be represented by the clergy, the professors in our theological seminaries, and all high church officials.” —Francis J. Grimke

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