Know anybody struggling with being single?

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Steve Simms

My wife is a relationship coach. She was single until she was 37. That gave her lots of time to learn to be “shamelessly single.” Check out her latest, practical and encouraging blog post @ . . .

Shamelessly Single – Ernie Simms Coaching

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OOO — Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Steve Simms

I don’t just believe that God is omnipresent. I experience Him as ever in-me-present!

God’s everywhere.
Even if your unaware,
Wherever you go,
He’s already there.

God’s everywhere,
Not just in holy places.
Look closely and see God
In human faces.

There is one place God will let you keep Him out of. That’s your heart.

To believe God is omnipotent, but reject His power in your life, is tragic. By your own belief, you’ve admitted that you can’t prevail over God.

If you believe God is omniscient, trying to hide anything from Him is nuts! It’s a waste of your time and energy.

Many people question God. Few allow God to question them. “Search me, O Lord.”

Nature is logically arranged. If God didn’t arrange it, who did?

Life can’t be scientifically proven to have meaning. Still, few intellectuals follow the science and live like their life is meaningless.

I believe in one, not-of-the-world government–the kingdom of God! Let the living Jesus rule! Listen closely to your conscience and Jesus will give you His perspective and direction.

The living Jesus isn’t stuck in the past or the future. He’s present and active, right now. I find that ardent, passionate enthusiasm for Jesus isn’t welcome in most churches. Even the Desert Fathers (in the fourth century) felt the need to leave church behind so that they could passionately pursue Jesus.

Revival is when the living Jesus is unleashed from programs, organizational hierarchy, human control, and tradition. Unfortunately, church frequently substitutes meetings, rituals, and programs for the presence of the living Jesus.

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Fight for your dependence by surrendering

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Steve Simms

To answer the Bible’s call to daily dependence on Jesus is to really live. If Jesus isn’t working in and thru you, you’re not experiencing what He wants you to.

If you don’t focus on Jesus, you won’t be able to follow Him. If you do, you won’t want to follow anything or anyone else. You can’t follow the risen Jesus with hollow words. He requires total surrender and dependence.

If you won’t hear directly from Jesus and respond to what He tells you, what you hear in a sermon won’t help you much. Christian beliefs are no substitute for a godly lifestyle. “Be doers of the word, not hearers only.” There’s no reason to claim Christianity, if you don’t want to obey the risen Jesus.

Grace doesn’t replace obedience to the living Jesus. It empowers it.

When the living Jesus is your attraction, all the rest is just distraction. Christianity, without daily dependence on the living Jesus, is just an empty shell.

Discipleship is surrendering to what Jesus wants, not demanding what you want. Biblical Christ-followers live to please God, not to satisfy their own desires. If you don’t align your desires with God’s will, they’ll gradually malign your life. However, if you let Jesus have His way in your thoughts and feelings, He’ll fill you with light and delight!

Get to know Jesus the way you get to your friends, thru relationship, not by hearing lectures about them. To miss out on the joy of heart-to-heart interaction with Jesus, is to miss it all! People who truly believe that Jesus is alive, should continually try to make direct connection with Him.

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Seeing truth when you don’t wanna

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Steve Simms

Continually accusing others makes us blind to our own faults, but we’re not innocent. You can help people more by sincerely listening to them, than by accusing them. To ignore your conscience is to ignore the way to a better life.

Blindness to injustice, past and present, is widespread. Compassion helps us see it. To go beyond deception, we need to see truth that hurts, not just truth that we like.

When seeing truth costs us something, it’s easy to look the other way. If you openly look at truth, it will mess up your fantasies. Any truth that we refuse to see, holds us in bondage. Check out: Off the RACE Track.

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10 year anniversary on Word Press

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Steve Simms

Thank you, Word Press, for supporting my blogging for 10 years!

You offer a great platform for freedom of speech and I appreciate it!

I love being able to share Free Gas For Your Think Tank and hopethoughts.com.

Here’s to 10 more years!

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Desire or conscience–which leads you today?

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Steve Simms

Not getting what you want is often a blessing in disguise. Some desires are helpful; others are harmful. It helps to know the difference.

Satisfying a wrongful desire, doesn’t end it. Instead, its demands return even stronger.

Wanting more can easily become a distraction from fully enjoying what you have. When we put feelings before facts and desire before discernment, we “ignore the science.” Neither the facts of global warming nor the facts of physiology should be ignored.

Lack of self-control is the enemy of long-term happiness. To follow your feelings, without discernment, is to dive into deception.

More happiness can be found by controlling your desires than by letting them control you. All desires aren’t equal. Some pull you toward good; others toward evil. Be wise. People are happier when they avoid thoughts and activities that cause guilt. Desires, unregulated by conscience, wisdom, and self-control, are dangerous.

My thoughts, feelings, and desires, often try to turn me away from following Jesus. However, when I let your conscience, declare me a wretch, the concept of grace becomes amazing! Without guilt and remorse, I feel no need for forgiveness, mercy, or grace.

If there isn’t a way to “love your enemies,” Jesus wouldn’t have commanded us to do it. There’s no inequity in iniquity. The Bible says, “All have sinned & fallen short of the glory of God.”

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Host people with hospitality (don’t roast them with rage)

Posted on January 22, 2021 by Steve Simms

Recurring bad behavior isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice.

If we would behave, the way we think others should behave, the world would be better. Change your behavior from hostile to hospitable and people will respond differently.

Are you hosting people with kindness or toasting them with anger? Shall we be hostile or hospitable? That is the question.

I’m not responsible for how you treat me, but I am for how I treat you. May I be kind Expressing God’s kindness is more likely to change people than expressing my anger.

Phones, tablets. and computers don’t post hateful statements and accusations. People do. Social media isn’t hostile. It just reveals the hostility in people’s hearts. Angry responses say more about you, than about the people you’re responding to.

I have my opinions, but to claim I have my own reality is delusional. Truth matters. We’re all responsible for our behavior and there’s an inner judge. Guilt is a warning. If you won’t regulate your behavior by some moral standard, it will run amuck.

I’m capable of evil, but not of pure good. My best falls far short of righteousness.

If you believe bad things can happen, then good things can also happen. Have hope!

Setting goals but not setting behaviors that will accomplish those goals, goes nowhere. Unlike behaviorless goals (and sermons), direct awareness of the living Jesus will transform your behavior.

Christians, try this. Let your time spent reading the Bible with an open heart, far surpass your time listening to sermons.

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Something to agree on

Posted on January 22, 2021 by Steve Simms 
Everyday you're alive, 
You can do more than just survive. 
Appreciate the blessings that arrive 
Disguised as ordinary human beings. 
Repair your heart connection 
So you can defeat 
Inner insurrection 
That tries to overthrow 
Genuine affection.

I've never enjoyed insulting people. 
To belittle someone would hurt me. 
I don't mind people disagreeing with me. 
Life would be boring if nobody ever did.

My real fight isn't with other people, 
But with my own fears and insecurities.
I find no need to berate 
Anybody at all. 
I agree about something with anyone 
Living anywhere on this planet.  
I love to find it and celebrate it 
Together with them!
That's union -- heart to heart communion. 
How exciting, common ground's been found!
"Me too, me too, that's how I feel! 
Our disagreement's not that big a deal." 
By fighting each other, 
We've been fighting windmills.

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Amazing Grace @ President Biden’s inauguration

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Steve Simms

“That saved a wretch like me . . .” is not just lyrics that Americans sang with Garth Brooks at President Biden’s inauguration. It’s an admission that we humans all need to be set free from the power & corruption of our self-destructive & morally bankrupt human nature.

In the light of God’s holiness, we humans desperately needs rescue and forgiveness. The risen Jesus Christ offers that freely to all who will surrender their lives to daily follow & obey Him. Many years ago, through God’s amazing grace, the living Jesus revealed Himself to “a wretch like me” & filled me with healing, freedom, & an ongoing, continually transforming relationship with Him.

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Thoughts for behavior modification

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Steve Simms

Anger, anger everywhere, without a kind thought to think. Lord, have mercy on us. To say you love God, but live without being honest and compassionate, is hypocrisy.

People who consistently do a bad thing, tend to ease their conscience by accusing others of doing that same bad thing. In reality, people’s behaviors reveal the truth about them, more than their assertions do.

Human behavior, without continual monitoring by the conscience, tends to follow temptation. However, when the living Jesus is the source of your behavior modification, your lifestyle begins to resemble His.

Human life is too valuable to be considered disposable or to be lived destructively. Treat all human life with respect!

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