The question that changed my life . . .

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Steve Simms

Sitting in church once,
Thinking I was a Christian,
This question came to me:
“If you were born a Hindu,
What would you be today?”
After some thought, I answered,
“I’d be a Hindu.”
Then another thought
Pounced into my brain,
“Why do you think you’re a Christian?”
Suddenly I realized I wasn’t really one.
Two years later I met the risen Jesus
And He put His fire in my soul.
Everyday since then,
I’ve seen Him do
And heard Him say
Many amazing things!

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Invisible rivers flow in the heart, visible ones in the eyes

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Steve Simms

Jesus promised His followers rivers of living water flowing from within them, not watered down ideas from outside them. Religious words without spiritual renewal have little effect. However, when invisible, inner rivers of God’s love, flow thru my heart, visible rivers often flow from my eyes.

The living Jesus is the “Go-To Guy.” “Come unto Me all you who are weary and burdened.” When the risen Jesus is your fuel, His light in your heart, will always burn brightly. (The splendor of Christ clears my heart of the squalor of self-focus.)

Fuel your faith with the living Jesus, not just with theological ideas and religious meetings. To expect listening to someone’s words to keep you going spiritually is like expecting a lecture to power your car.

The risen Jesus is eternal. If you let Him be continually active inside you, you never have to refuel your spiritual gas tank.

If we aren’t fueled with a passion for honesty and truth, we can easily be fooled by our own opinions and desires. When you’re in the middle of nowhere and your fuel gage is on empty, don’t run out of gas; fill up with Jesus! When your fuel runs dry and you feel like a fossil, don’t give up. Put His power in your tank.

The physical world will pass away. True reality is spiritual. Be realistic; be a mystic. Stagnant spirituality should be stirred up by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps you need a personal Pentecost. (Read Acts chapter two.)

Too many Christians want Jesus in the future (Heaven), but prefer limited interaction with Him here and now. A typical church service allows no room for the interventive Jesus to disrupt the present moment.

A falsified life requires so much memory and effort, that it can’t be simply enjoyed. Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

Invisible rivers are real, too!
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Confusion is no illusion. Clarity is a rarity.

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Steve Simms

It’s easy to think you understand a situation when you don’t. I’ve done it often. As human beings, we don’t accurately know how much we know and how much we don’t know. Plus, we easily get the two confused.

When a thought enters your mind that you didn’t choose to think, that thought isn’t from you. Accepting it as your own will create confusion. If we won’t remove weedy thoughts from our mind, it will be overrun with diversions, distractions, and disturbances.

The heart often sees things clearer than the mind does. To keep your heart clamped down is to embrace confusion.

Pride is easily confused. It holds self up like an ornamental shield (having little strength, but making a flashy show), and believes it is thinking clearly.

Today, tomorrow, and yesterday are all so confusing. I find the least confusing time in life to be the present moment. When you need someone to put some sense into all the nonsense of life, listen to the living, resurrected Jesus Christ.

People aren’t comfortable in confusion so they tend to find someone or some group to blame it on. Self-confusion is so prevalent, saying, Know yourself, is like saying, “Quote the entire Magna Carta from memory.” Instead of trying to know myself, I find much more peace, forgetting about myself and getting to know the risen Jesus better.

Our human emotions are volatile and confusing. It’s best to examine their accuracy before we follow and obey them. Unfortunately, some people are so open minded that they will mind their thoughts and feelings, no matter how irrational or harmful they are.

Confusing times call for clarity. The more I surrender to the living Jesus, the clearer my life becomes. A single flash of His insight can replace a confused mind and troubled heart, with inner peace. “Be still and know that I am God.” When I don’t understand, I stand under the empty Cross and trust the risen Jesus.

Understanding is overrated. Everyday we use and enjoy many things we don’t understand (like digital technology & electricity).

Anger is overrated. Too often we use it as a mask to hide our insecurities. Confusion causes too many people discard their best cards and keep their worst ones in their hand.

Confusion even works on a national level. A great country isn’t divided into hostile camps. To spread anger and distrust is to diminish greatness.

The longer you try to make your conscience go along with your opinions and feelings, the more confused you will be. The best antidotes I’ve found for confusion are: reading the Bible with an open heart, listening to Jesus, and praying in tongues.

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Thinkercise to make mental waves

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Steve Simms

Writing is simply making your thoughts retrievable to readers or listeners. If you post anything original on social media, you’re a writer. My favorite writing is when someone uses uplifting, yet ordinary words, to express extraordinary ideas and feelings.

For some of my innovating writing that can help you thinkercise your mind:

Think outside conspiracy theories. Search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

Looking for more than religious control and politicized faith? Learn to think outside the physical world. Google: Beyond Church Ekklesia.

To boast about some history while telling people to ignore other history is inconsistent. Search: Off the RACE Track book.

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Internal clarity / external victory . . .

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Steve Simms

Our emotions can put so much makeup on facts, that we no longer recognize them and angrily defend our deception. The mind that doesn’t monitor feelings and align them with reality and wisdom, will eventually be mastered by them.

The most important argument anyone can win, is the argument with negative thoughts and harmful desires that happens in their heart. The living Jesus working inside of you, can help you win that argument!

If you let the living Jesus direct your feelings and desires, you’ll live differently than if they direct you. When you let “Christ in you” overcome you’re interior enemies, you’ll have His power to love your exterior enemies.

To finally recognize the risen Jesus, with our internal eyes, is life’s greatest surprise. I know Jesus is alive and present because of the amazing internal things He has done in my heart everyday, for many years. There’s no shortage of sermons in church, but there is a great scarcity of testimonies about inner experiences with the living Jesus.

Its easy to resist the people and situations around us. It’s wiser to resist the temptations that harass us internally. If you’re forceful with your internal enemies (the emotions and thoughts that harass you), you can be kind to your external ones.

You’re the traffic cop between your feelings and your actions. You can pull your feelings over, or you can release them into action.

Biblical Christianity is internal, not outward forms or programs. Let your behavior be birthed by interior interactions with Jesus. He told us to seek first the kingdom of God (God’s internal, invisible government) not any of the world’s governments. When politics divide Christians, we’ve taken our eyes off the living, resurrected Jesus.

He rose
And lives
Right here,
Right now.
Don’t miss
Essential Jesus.

Since the body of Christ split into categories (tribes / denominations), it no longer functions as one body but as many independent organizations. However, when Christ-followers gather heart-to-heart, expressing their love for the living Jesus to each other, divisions fade away.

Christ-followers should be kind, loving, honest, peacemakers — more than any other people on earth. Are we? If not, why not?

Church is a very narrow view of what it means to be a Christian. Perhaps we should graduate to obeying the risen Jesus 24/7/365. I believe Christian graduation is when a believer goes beyond head-knowledge to following and obeying the risen Jesus in daily life. Let’s graduate from sermons to implementation. “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself “

Church could use some “commencement exercises” to train us to begin to develop the strength to go live out our faith every day. Graduation releases people from regular lectures, to go apply their learning in the real world — a good idea for Christians. Church needs a higher degree; we need to increase the temperature of our love for Jesus and our willingness to obey Him.

When people aren’t allowed to graduate from church, many settle in for life, however, some set out to follow Jesus on their own. I believe the shared teachings of historic Christianity. We don’t ever graduate from them, but we do need to graduate from hearing about them to daily doing them.

I believe what Jesus said and what His early disciples wrote about Him in the Bible, because His presence in my life confirms it both internally and externally. Since the writers of the Bible were led by the Spirit as they wrote, I find the Spirit leads me to align with their teachings.

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It takes much more courage to take off an invisible mask than a visible one

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Steve Simms

Perhaps the masks that we should protest most, aren’t medical face masks, but the invisible masks that people wear on their heart. If people would refuse to wear a heart-mask with the same energy that some refuse a face mask, we would learn who they really are.

A mask on your heart is a blindfold that keeps you from seeing things clearly. To tighten your inner mask is to strangle in loneliness. It takes much more courage to take off an invisible mask than a visible one.

Your invisible masks reveal the location of your fears. They don’t conceal them. Invisible masks conform to the shape of your fears and outline their form for all to see.

It’s easy to believe we wear no mask, while we hide the truth from self and others. Humility walks without a mask. Pride falsely claims he’s not wearing one.

Mercy creates a milieu where masks can be loosened, and set aside. Then hearts can connect. Effective mask removal requires humility. Without it the mask quickly returns.

Relationships based on social masking are flimsy, false, and frayed. The mask of pride won’t stop the spread of despair. It speeds it up. Often our masks are hidden behind our pride.

Many people wear an invisible mask wherever they go, because they have secrets that they don’t want you to know. It’s a wearisome task to keep a mask over your soul. It’s easy to mask your face, but it takes courage to face the mask on your soul and open your heart to the risen Jesus.

Happiness is a better mask than sadness, but creating genuine happiness within you is best. To mask the difference between fear and caution, encourages people to take unnecessary risks.

Religion too often asks people to wear a mask and to pretend to be something they’re not, but the living Jesus changes people inside. A religious mask can hide a lot from people, but the living Jesus sees right thru it. When Christianity adopted the mask of ministry (the “clergy/laity divide”), it lost much of its power.

People who are truly on the rock of Christ have the freedom to stop playing a role. For those who don’t want to wear a mask, “realing” (making honest and sincere statements) is the best way to avoid it. Sins admitted can be forgiven. Sins masked remain. Grace is light, not a mask.

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Agree with me . . .

Posted on May 10, 2020 by Steve Simms

There’ so much disagreement today. Here’s something simple that maybe we can agree on. Agree with me, please.

When the skin
People are in
Is allowed to
Define who they are,
We’ve gone too far.

Race is a mask
That keeps people apart.
Unmask the past.

Eye color; no big deal.
Skin color; big deal!
Why?

Get Off the RACE Track here.


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“Reals” & lies — which to tell?

Posted on May 9, 2020 by Steve Simms

Some people treat lies like duct tape and try to hold their life together with them. Reals (honest statements) are much more secure. People often choose to believe in a comfortable and/or familiar lie than in a disturbing real.

To lie is to defy reality with mere words. It’s like standing in front of a speeding train and telling it to stop.

Lies are false statements; reals are true ones. Lies distort truth; reals reveal it. Let’s replace lies with reals. Finding truth lies in the art of separating lies from reals.

People invent lies. Reals (honest statements) report what actually happened. Reals give light. Lies produce deception. Now matter how strongly you deny a real, it remains true.

Lies create guilt. Reals produce guilt-free living. Lies require commitment to deception. Reals require commitment to truth. People who despise lies shouldn’t tell them.

Realing (truth-telling) may feel risky, but lying bets the farm on your ability to deceive. When you’re lying to others, your not realing (being honest) with yourself.

Some people lie all day and then call it real life. Life is more in touch with reality when it is based on reals (truth statements) instead of lies.

Liars have trouble staying anonymous. Truth comes out. People tell lies because we’re afraid to tell reals. Many people will easily accept a lie that agrees with them, but strongly resist a real that doesn’t.

Reals are memorable because they actually happened. Lies are forgettable because they contradict reality.

Conversations (and news media) are a mixture of reals (truth statements) and lies. No wonder we’re so confused. History is also a mixture of reals and lies. It’s difficult to tell the difference.

Here are some free sample reals:

Love is respectful (not rude). When you see love demonstrated, take a moment to appreciate it. Showing love and kindness to your enemy is worth 1000 sermons or social media posts that try to straighten him out.

We can say we love God, but if we really do, we will love the people He loves. “God so loved the world,” (the people not real estate). How we treat all kinds of people, is the measure of how much we love God.

Love doesn’t defend injustice, no matter who it is directed at. Religion permits meanness towards people we disagree with, but biblical Christianity causes us to show love to everybody. For more reals about Christianity, search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.

Skin-color valuation, like other preferences, can operate unconsciously and impact the way we see and interpret events. For more reals about race, search for: Off the RACE Track book.

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Thinking about lying (and “realing”) . . .

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Steve Simms

Although very few people will admit that they like lies and enjoy lying, dishonesty is quite common. Liars are fantasy writers, even if they never touch a pen or a keyboard. Some people lie so much that they create a living novel. Their life story is a work of fiction.

A deceiver is a liar. English needs a word for a truth-teller, so I’m inventing one. Be a realer. Realers (truth-tellers) are honest. Lying is much easier than realing. That’s probably why it’s so common.

Creativity can be used to tell lies, but it’s far more effective when it’s used for realing — to convey truth with compassion. Liars try not to let facts interfere with their fraudulent words. Realers do. They fact check. When you catch yourself in a lie, come clean. If you keep going you’ll get lost in self-made mythology.

Your conscience is the best lie detector. However, it sounds an alarm when you lie, not when other people do.

Lying tatters self-esteem, even if you pretend it doesn’t. It requires courage to be a realer when the truth exposes something you want to hide. Those caught in fear won’t do that. To lie is to admit that you’re either ashamed of or afraid of the truth (or both).

Lies were invented when Adam and Eve hid from God and from each other. They were creatively deceptive. Some people enjoy lying, but not as many like to be lied to.

A strong, self-focused agenda tends to hinder realing and to substitute expediency for honesty. To lie is to deny the real world for fantasies of your own making. To align with the real world requires radical honesty. Leaving out facts, to tarnish the truth, is a form of lying.

Lying is the fear-based response of people who tremble at the thought of telling the truth in a particular situation. Lying might deceive the hearer, but it creates guilt in the teller (who then lies to himself to try to cover his conscience). Liars are traitors to truth. Realers are loyal to it.

Jesus said: “The truth shall set you free,” but many Christians act like they think that grace gives them the freedom to lie. Even the best lies are false, phony, and fake, no matter how nice they sound or how effective they may seem. Perhaps the world’s most common lie is: “I don’t lie.”

Lying is easy and may help hide the fear of reality. Realing is difficult because it requires the courage to face reality. Because lies easily erode, everything built on them requires even more lies, and will eventually crumble.

No one has to lie. It’s either a deliberate choice, a habit, or a fearful response. We can choose to be real and honest instead. To get by with a lie is to trash the truth.

“They say,” is hearsay. It is the building blocks for conspiracy theories. Reality matters. It can be covered up, but it won’t go away. Lies are fairy tales told by those who fear the real world. One lie leads to another, creating a chain of deceit that shackles truth. Healthy self-esteem needs no lies; it can boldly embrace realing.

Because people make and write history, some lies wind up there. For some historical realing, search: Off the Race Track book.

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What is a person?

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Steve Simms

A human being is amazing,
Making individual choices,
Having feelings and thoughts,
Able to comprehend concepts
And communicate ideas and information.
Learn to appreciate this creature,
For you are one
And so am I.

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