Keep your heart “Open For (Spiritual) Business”

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Steve Simms

When you open up your heart, love rushes in open flushes out anger, bitterness, guilt and the hurtful things that enslave you. Open-hearted love doesn’t mean unconditional approval. An open heart can deeply care about people while strongly disagreeing with them.

Your heart is a terrible thing to shut down. (Be courageous and keep it open.)
It’s hard to be happy when your heart is closed down.

Faithful Christ-followers connect heart-to-heart, even with Christ-followers from people-groups they’ve been taught to reject. Open hearts connect. Closed hearts collide and shut out caring, empathy, and compassion.

To try to be a Christian with your heart closed to certain people-groups is like trying to see with your eyes closed. To put walls in your heart is to build a foundation for loneliness.

To open your heart to beautiful healing try this: Sincerely confess your own wrongdoing and forgive those who have wronged you.

Some people have a huge sign, hanging on their body language, reading: “MY HEART IS CLOSED!”

Without inner light, a darkened heart creates discouragement and depression. Jesus said that God is unseen yet “sees what is done in secret.” Open your heart to the One who knows all your secrets. Church should facilitate people connecting heart-to-heart with Christ and with one another.

Entertainment isn’t innocent; it shapes us. It can uplift or it can corrupt. It can open or shut your heart. Don’t let it fill your thoughts and heart with evil!

The use of coercion and/or meanness toward others reveals a lack of faith in Christ, which involves “speaking the truth in love.” Jesus and His dynamic presence in us unites all who continually follow and obey Him, overriding the barriers between us.

If you consume media full of depressing food for your mind and heart (negativity, disrespect, violence, vulgarity) you will be opening yourself up to depression.

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Drano, Liquid Plummer, & clogged up church

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Steve Simms

Christian leaders should be like plumbers, unclogging people’s drains so they can freely flow with the gifts of the Spirit. Jesus said that His “Liquid Plummer” (“rivers of living water”) will flow from His followers’ hearts. Take the top off and let it flow!

When church is clogged and little flows, let Jesus pour out His Drano. (He will open things up!) I don’t like to meet as an audience member for a religious lecture, but as part of the interactive, Spirit-led body of Christ.

A sermon that allows no opportunity in the meeting for people to spend time doing what they just heard, creates hearers not doers. Hearing a sermon without taking corresponding action is a spiritual distraction.

When the voices of God’s people are silenced in church, only one person’s perspective is heard. Nonetheless, members of Christ’s body are typically gagged and bound by tradition, protocol, and hierarchy — kept silent and inactive. It’s easy to listen regularly to sermons but ignore the voice of the resurrected Jesus.

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The One Minute Easter Service

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Steve Simms

Short on time? Celebrate Easter with a quick, one minute service.

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Easter Requiem For Church As Usual

Posted on April 15, 2019 by Steve Simms


Members of Christ’s body meet,
Gagged and bound (hand and heart),
By tradition, protocol, and hierarchy.
They’re not allowed to be doers,
But are lined up in rows as hearers only,
Gathered to be restrained,
Not permitted to freely speak or act
Or openly obey their Head,
The resurrected Jesus.
Then they’re dismissed to go
And forget the words they heard.

To help church come alive, go to this link and check out my book, Beyond Church–An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible–Ekklesia.

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Palm Sunday as it really happened (not as it’s talked about in church)

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Steve Simms

Palm Sunday wasn’t a lecture by a religious professional but rather spontaneous declarations of praise by everyday people. It was everyday people celebrating the presence of the living Jesus, not a religious talk about Jesus in the past.

Palm Sunday is about ordinary people shouting, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” Don’t settle for a lecture. If there’s ever a Sunday when church should break out of the 1-man lecture format and everyone celebrate Jesus, it’s Palm Sunday!

Crowds of people were spontaneously celebrating Jesus in the open air on Palm Sunday, instead of being in church (or synagogue). Perhaps, on present day Palm Sunday, we should allow the living Jesus to make a triumphal entry into church while ordinary people to celebrate Him! After all, it wasn’t a church service but, ordinary people spontaneously responding to Jesus’ presence.

Palm trees lift the human spirit. It was so appropriate to use them to worship the living Jesus! Palm Sunday proclaims the supremacy of Jesus Christ and the equality of all humanity! Let’s live out Palm Sunday everyday!

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Some Simmering Simmsisms

Posted on April 14, 2019 by Steve Simms

When wrong is called right and right is called wrong, moral confusion soon comes along. Don’t let your life be directed by happenstance, but by a holy stance!

Much of what we experience and how we feel today will be the consequences of our past thoughts, words, and behaviors. If you don’t like how you feel change the thoughts, words, and images you are filling yourself with. To feel good fill up with good!

Some people think gratitude is a mere platitude. In reality, it’s a life-changing attitude.

Since our ways and God’s ways contradict (Isaiah 55:8), how can we follow our plans and programs and be Spirit-led at the same time? God is always looking for full-time Christ-followers — 24/7/365! Following Jesus — letting Him correct you & lead you, even in ways you don’t want to go — is an incredible adventure!

Politics can change laws and attempt to enforce them, but can’t change hearts and minds. That takes Christ’s presence and power.

If race is based on skin appearance, shouldn’t tattooed be a race? It’s hard to mistreat people when you know their heart. Open hearts produce kindness and compassion.

Equal rights must include the right of conscience. No one should be required to approve of behaviors they believe morally wrong.

To disagree with other people is your right. To mistreat others is to broadcast your own insecurities. There is no justifiable reason to mistreat people. Jesus said to even “love your enemies.”

Inspiration will change a nation. So will degradation. All change isn’t equal.

A strong desire, craving, or compulsion to do something, doesn’t make it morally right. Here’s a mind-bender: When we surrender to God as our defender, life will render peace and joy!

Birthed people should respect prebirthed people. To mistreat any human life is to disrespect it all.

For too many people their only exposure to the Word of God is through the filter of a preacher. Filtered water is good; a filtered Bible, not so good. Read it for yourself! Christians don’t need celebrity experts to explain the Bible and God’s Spirit. We need to listen directly to the Bible and the Spirit.

Church is too often like a theme park train. It goes in a circle and lets you off the same place you got on. When the members of the body of Christ are quenched & confined to sit passively for a program, the Spirit is quenched.

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Rethinking freedom — what is it?

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Steve Simms

Freedom includes the right to disagree with people’s ideas, statements, choices, and lifestyles. However, it doesn’t give us a right to mistreat people.

When how things are described becomes more important than how things really are, deception sets in. None of us humans is 100% correct in all of our opinions and beliefs. Unless we find and admit our errors, we’re stuck in deception.

To make a mistake, admit it, and move on is freeing and healing. To define yourself by a mistake is devastating. Choose repentance, healing, and freedom. We can run and get free from compulsive desires or we can sit in them until they enslave us. Paul of Tarsus said we should “flee” them for freedom.

Defining reality by your following your feelings is denial. Aligning your feelings with reality is truth and freedom.

Being mad at people because they don’t agree with you is like being mad at the sun because it doesn’t rise on your schedule. It’s bondage to self-focus.

Many times the Bible says, “This is what the Lord says.” (NIV) Perhaps we should take it seriously! The God of love doesn’t approve of all of our behaviors. He calls us to realign some of them with His will.

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Fruity rivers of living water (an inner smoothie)

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Steve Simms

The fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, etc.) can’t be taught by sermons, but will spontaneously flow from a heart aglow with Christ. Church can confine us with strings of outward obligation. Christ want to free us to flow with inner springs of living water. To follow Christ is to be directed and led by His inner promptings — not just to say that you agree with His teaching

To be compassionately listened to as you share what’s on your heart is healing. Open, Spirit-led sharing in church releases revival. When the gathered body of Christ does the preaching as individual members are prompted by the Spirit, Christ’s presence is manifested.

God wants to release an anointed flow inside of all Christ-followers (rivers of living water), but we’ve been trained to stop it. To replace Spirit-led spontaneity with religious formalism quenches the Holy Spirit and produces a form of godliness without power.

Christians say, “Jesus is risen,” but we often meet like He went back in the tomb and left us to follow a program and a preacher. Roman soldiers sealed Christ’s tomb trying to keep the dead Jesus in. Let’s not seal up church services to keep the risen Jesus out. We can go along with feelings, friends, media, opinions, tradition, and/or culture, or we can let Jesus lead us. Seldom both.

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The ultimate death penalty?

Posted on April 6, 2019 by Steve Simms

Racism is wrong. So is prenatalism. Humanity shouldn’t be mistreated because of skin color or because of living in a womb.

Both the left and the right support a death penalty. The right for those convicted of horrible crimes. The left for the most innocent.

Judge not? Perhaps the epitome of judging is to judge the most innocent form of human life unworthy of living.

Abortion is the ultimate death penalty. It takes 100% of life, not just part of it.

Prenatal execution is cruel and unusual punishment, ripping the condemned into tiny pieces. To kill a developing human being in the name of “reproductive rights” seems brutal and unloving.

The prenatal death penalty doesn’t deter crime. It is arbitrary and unfair. Its victims have done nothing wrong. Abortion treats a developing human life as an object to be disrespected and discarded.

The prenatal “crime” worthy of the death penalty is the “inconvenience” of her or his existence. Prenatal capital punishment guarantees that the innocent are put to death. The “right to abortion” puts the prenatal death penalty in the express lane — no cause or reason needed.

Birth is the magic moment when murder becomes illegal in the United States. However, before that the goal of scorched earth womb warfare is to allow no survivors. It’s almost 100% effective. It’s an oxymoron that seems obstructive to justice — to call the destructive killing of the unborn a “reproductive right.”

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Can a sermon be a Sunday morning religious lullaby?

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Steve Simms

Church is like a religious lullaby, too often putting Christians to sleep. Attending church requires nothing but passivity. That doesn’t sound like a great plan for Christian spiritual growth.

Church services say to people; “We don’t need your input, just be a passive spectator and let the preacher do the rest.” Long or short, sermons often make people feel like they don’t really belong in church, because their insights and gifts are deemed to be totally unnecessary to the message and/or the meeting.

Three questions to shake up a church out of a rut: 1) In this age of lateral learning (learning from your peers), how long will church make people sit passively and silently listen? 2) If Christ has given spiritual gifts to all His people, why does church limit them to listening to a preacher every week? 3) Is it possible that the traditional one-man lecture church format has held Christians back from becoming all God wants us to be?

Just because a preacher has thousands of followers, it doesn’t mean that he is leading them in the right direction. Even if he only has a hand-full of followers, he may be holding them back from what God wants them to be.

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