Full-impact Christianity

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Steve Simms

Low-impact Christianity can be boring. Full-impact never is! Full-impact Christianity is more exciting and absorbing than any sport, music, addiction, or entertainment venue. Go Jesus!

Early Christianity was full-impact. It changed people (not thru politics) but by demonstrating the presence of the risen Jesus. Christianity as a weekly event has far less impact than Christianity as people daily allowing the risen Jesus to control and direct them.

Full-impact Christianity doesn’t dilly-dally with self-focus. It wholeheartedly follows and obeys the risen Jesus. Only when surrender and obedience to the presence of the living Jesus is the focus, will Christianity have its full impact.

Full-impact Christianity creates disciplined, obedient, and humble, yet joyful, Christ-followers, not just Sunday church attendees. It proclaims and demonstrates the ability of the living Jesus to transform human lives into love and holiness.

Full-impact Christianity doesn’t just honor Jesus the religious figure. It follows and obeys the inner Jesus, “Christ in you.”

The New Testament describes full-impact Christianity. Why should we settle for anything less? (If you don’t believe Christianity can be tremendously more life-changing than it is in Western countries, read the book of Acts.)

For full-impact Christianity, we must allow the risen Jesus to live in us and to align our opinions, desires, and feelings with His. The world needs to see full-impact Christianity–the kind that changes hearts, sets the captives free, and overflows with love.

Full-impact Christianity begins to manifest when Christians meet to all listen to the living Jesus and then let everyone present say and/or do what Jesus tells them to. Then people begin to realize that the living Jesus, who is present when we meet in His name, can run a church service all by Himself, if we would only let Him.

People loving their enemies and blessing those who curse them, is a powerful display of full-impact Christianity. We need more of it.

To follow Christ, you must focus on the inner Jesus, Christ in you in the now. You can’t follow Jesus in the past. Now’s the time. Jesus can organize and run your inner life to produce peace and joy. But He won’t take inner control of you, unless you surrender.

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People like to use the “nationalistic we” when referring to what they consider the “good” parts of their country’s history, but not for the bad parts.

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Steve Simms

Get beyond the “nationalistic we.” Search for: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.

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Lucky breaks or blessings?

Posted on August 9, 2020 by Steve Simms


There is good luck and bad luck, but there are no bad blessings! Wishing for luck often causes anxiety, but appreciating your blessings is de-stressing. Even when your luck feels low, you can still let God’s blessings flow!

Lucky breaks come by chance. They don’t follow a code, but blessings are divinely bestowed. When you attribute your blessings to luck, you mistake them for thankless, random events, and miss out on the joy of gratitude.

Your present blessings aren’t just lucky breaks (or the results of your hard work). They are presents from the living God. Blessings aren’t deserved. They aren’t earned. They are much better than we deserve.

My joys far outweigh my struggles, but I’m not lucky. I’m blessed. Rather than “taking my chances” in life, I prefer to appreciate and “count my blessings.” Some folks see life as a collage of coincidences; I’d rather see it as a bouquet of blessings.

You’re alive and you’re surrounded by blessings, ready to be appreciated. There’s no need to put your life on hold and wait for luck. Blessings aren’t likeable, random occurrences (lucky breaks). Blessings are favors that are given to you by the living God.

You can’t count all your blessings. You’ve received way too many to even be vaguely aware of a tiny percentage of them. Blessings don’t just show up or happen by mere luck. They’re sent by the living God. God’s blessings can be rejected, sometimes without even realizing we are doing it.

If you call good events luck or accomplishments, you’ll be proud. If you call them blessings, you’ll be humble and grateful.

Who can you thank for lucky breaks? Nobody. Who can you thank for blessings? The living God. Luck is happenstance, but blessings are God’s stance on your behalf. Luck is coincidence; blessing is God-incidence.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presented a list of blessings. He didn’t give us a list of lucky breaks.

For more blessings, let the risen Jesus shine your soul with sanity and His spiritual light. Read the Bible while you listen to His voice. You can’t align with luck because it randomly occurs, but you can align with God’s blessing by hearing and obeying the living Jesus. God’s greatest blessing, which He offers to “whosoever will,” is a personal relationship with Him thru the living Jesus Christ.

The incredible complexity of earth’s diverse lifeforms, declares that they are finely tuned blessings, not accidental occurrences. People who daily recognize and appreciate life’s graphic demonstrations of God’s love, are part of earth’s most blessed demographic.

People say, “Life’s a marathon, not a sprint.” The truth is: We’ve turned life into a telethon for spectators to binge watch. Perhaps it’s time to get off the couch and use your blessings.

God.can — it’s not a website, but reality. (To experience God.can, search: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.)

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Those other pesky masks

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Steve Simms

When your public image doesn’t match who you are on the inside, it’s just a mask. Too many people want to protect their image by wearing various masks, but they leave their heart open to self-destructive and evil influences.

Hiding sin in your heart is like hiding a pebble in your shoe. Ouch! If you want to be mad about masks, get mad at the masks that you are wearing to hide what’s going on inside your heart.

In reality, masks are pointless. Regardless of how other people see you, you are whatever you really are on the inside. That’s what matters, not how well you hide behind your masks.

Church too often tries to get us to wear masks over our heart and just think about Jesus and/or merely believe that He lived. Instead church could train us to daily encounter and obey Jesus and be real with Him and with others. In Christianity, what you believe is important, but who you follow is more important. Do you openly follow and obey the living Jesus? Or do you just hide behind masks?

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The right to bear kindness in your arms & words

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Steve Simms

You have the right to be kind. Anything you say can be said in a nice way. You have the right to speak with kindness.

Hey, America! Let’s rise up and claim our right to bear kindness in our arms and in our words! We can call it the kindness amendment. Amend you life to be consistently kind to everybody, whether you like or agree with them, or not.

Be the kindness you want to see in the world. Kindness is a melody. It’s a great way to get people to harmonize. Kindness connects people.

Do you need help understanding some of the feelings being voiced today? The popular myth says that if racial injustice (past or present) is hidden, it’s healed. The pain of people of color loudly defies that myth. Listen.

Color-kindness listens. Color-blindness refuses to hear and understand. Perhaps it’s time to unmask American history and boldly examine the full story. My book, Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind can help you do that.

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Christians stay focused!

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Steve Simms

Anyone who is bored with Christianity is out of touch with the living, resurrected Jesus. When the living Jesus is bubbling up from within you, you will have joy, even if churches and bars are closed.

Christians, stay focused! Helping people respond positively to the risen Jesus is much more important than criticizing their politics.

Many Christians allow their attention to be distracted from the risen Jesus. I prefer to stay captivated by His glorious presence. I love to discover fresh, creative, and biblical approaches to a growing relationship with the living, resurrected Jesus Christ.

A daily relationship with the living Jesus is incredibly amazing. When the living Jesus takes over your life from the inside out, you’re too full of love to want to argue with people! When you daily experience Jesus you continually want to tell His story.

Everything on earth changes except the living Jesus. He’s the Rock — “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” If you daily follow the risen Jesus you’ll find yourself in amazing places, joyfully experiencing incredible situations.

Too many churches try to explain Jesus to the same people every week, instead of training them to maintain a daily relationship with Him. Rather than coaching people to daily follow the living Jesus and make disciples as they do, church makes them hear a weekly talk.

With bars and churches restricted in how they meet, try finding fulfillment biblically: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Church too often tries to distract people from the world, instead of demonstrating the presence of the risen Jesus.

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One by one — the 9 spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Steve Simms

The gifts of the Spirit are nine supernatural operations of the Holy Spirit that work in and thru Christ-followers. They are listed in 1 Corinthians chapter twelve.

When we open our heart and life to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christianity comes alive in whole new ways! If we ignore, reject, or quench God’s spiritual gifts, then we deprive both ourselves and others of their benefits. Here’s a sentence about each of the gifts:

  • A “word of wisdom” is some supernatural direction or leading from the living God.
  • A “word of knowledge” is some specific information that comes directly from the living God.
  • The spiritual gift of “faith” is supernatural belief that is able to fully trust God for a particular concern or situation.
  • “Gifts of healing” are miraculous recoveries from sickness or injury, directly produced by the living God.
  • “The working of miracles” is supernatural answers to prayer that defy logic and produce awe in those who hear about them.
  • “Prophecy” is direct communication from the living God, that a person shares with other people.
  • “Discerning of spirits” is to recognize the differences between your own spirit, God’s Spirit, and demon spirits.
  • “Speaking in tongues” is the supernatural ability to pray with words that you don’t understand, but freely flow from within you.
  • The “interpretation of tongues” is the supernatural revelation of the meaning of what is said when a person speaks in tongues.

If you focus on loving, encouraging, and serving others in the name of Jesus, spiritual gifts will manifest in and thru your life. The Holy Spirit releases His gifts thru receptive believers, moment by moment. They’re not “once and done” things.

The gifts of the Spirit aren’t operated by the mind. They flow from deep within the heart. Pride hinders spiritual gifts, humility releases them. (“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”)

For more about the gifts of the Spirit, search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book. Thank you.

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The answer’s not in politics, but in another kind of kingdom

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Steve Simms

There’s no adequate political answer for our current situation. We need the answer that transforms the heart — the living Jesus. When “we” means all humanity, many of our problems will fade away.

Biblical Christianity has it’s own government. It is the invisible government of the living Jesus, known as the kingdom of God.

Pressuring people to go along with you may be political, but it’s not “making a deal.” Negotiation depends on respect, kindness, persuasion, and compromise, not on force.

Politics stirs things up. Why? Because peaceful words are rarely spoken by people who have no peace in their heart. To think that people who disagree with you are less intelligent or less sincere than you, is a great deception.

In a democracy, political power should be used to unify the nation. Instead, it’s frequently used to divide it.

Politics often stands firm when its feet are in the wrong place. That’s not an answer to life. Instead, we need to let the living Jesus realign our steps.

If we’d all be more concerned about making our personal wrongs right instead of trusting in our political views, we’d not have to be so concerned about our personal rights being wronged. When too many people believe they have to do wrong to protect their rights, violence is common place.

Political promises and slogans are no better than the honesty and integrity of the person on the ballot. No matter how famous or smart, that person is a mere human being. It takes humble politicians to put the interest of the people above their own interest, but humble politicians seldom get elected.

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When history honors slaveholders, but leaves out the stories & trials of the slaves, it’s both incomplete & unjust.

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Steve Simms
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True hope doesn’t come from political ideologies

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Steve Simms

True hope doesn’t come from political ideologies or human governments. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Jesus announced the kingdom of God to establish His government within human hearts. The kingdom of God consists of all people who follow and obey the living Jesus. The kingdom of God is active on earth because the living Jesus is present to personally lead and direct those who are willing to obey Him. The kingdom of God is anywhere Jesus is acknowledged and obeyed as King.

God’s kingdom is Christ’s authority being exercised in your life. To enter the kingdom of God, you surrender your will to His. When the living Jesus isn’t obeyed as the King & Lord, the kingdom of God is undermined. To intentionally disobey Jesus is to deny that He is the Lord & King in your life.

The good news of the kingdom of God is that God’s just and compassionate government has been established and we’re invited to align with it. Governments can compel compliance, but only one government can fill hearts with love–the kingdom of God–Christ in you.

The kingdom of God isn’t a metaphor. It’s the reality of God’s inner government that begins to manifest as we surrender to the living Jesus. To live in the kingdom of God is to live in surrender and obedience to the living, resurrected Jesus Christ. If people are being led by the living Jesus, you will consistently see His character in their behavior; if not, you won’t.

Seeing the risen Jesus clearly living in and thru someone reveals the kingdom of God. It is far more powerful than any sermon I’ve ever heard.

When church only lectures, it doesn’t facilitate the kingdom of God. It doesn’t train people to obey the risen Jesus in day-to-day life.

Our comfort zone can blind us to God’s call to humility. It can hinder us from fully experiencing God’s kingdom. In the 1st century, the Pharisees tried to institutionalize and control Jesus. Today, church does.

Search for: Beyond Church Ekklesia.

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