A few things not said (like this) before . . .

Posted on June 10, 2018 by Steve Simms

The world has enough crude, mean, vulgar, profane, and disrespectful words and images. Why not say, write, or post something uplifting instead?

My two favorite electronic devices are my mind and my heart. I’m addicted to scrolling through them both for God’s inspiration! I strive to keep all negativity and malware out of both my mind and my heart.

When you’re lying, you’re living in a fairy tale world — your own mythical make-believe land. To get out of your fantasy land, tell the truth.

Every person is a teacher. Some people teach you effective ways to live and some teach self-destructive ways to live. Which do you want to learn?

The way out of intense emotional pain is not suicide; it’s the love, healing, and forgiveness offered by the living Jesus!

It may not be good to fall asleep in a sermon, but it’s far worse to nod off when God is talking to you. God speaks through your conscience. Ignoring His voice is like trying to drive while blindfolded.

No church program or pulpit presentation can compare to the actual presence of Christ. Why settle for less?

When church is led by the Spirit instead of by a human program, it becomes unpredictable. Inherited church that centers around a one-man sermon, may not be the most effective way for Christians to meet.

Posted in anti-malware, cussing, dishonesty, electronic media, fantasy, forgiveness, honesty, integrated electronics, lying, malware, negativity, profanity, sermon, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

All lives matter (or do they?)

Posted on June 2, 2018 by Steve Simms

You can’t treat me that way! I was worthless and disposable in the womb, but now my life matters. I lived through the womb!!!

I went through the womb and came out of it alive! (I bet you did, too.) I’m so glad that you lived through the disposable period of human life and that your mother chose life for you!

Womb survivors are everywhere; but the many millions of womb victims are seldom heard about. Womb life matters!

Here’s a watered down message: “Don’t choose to take human life unless, of course, it is still in the womb.” It’s also contradictory.

In the US a court decision; in Ireland a vote; and prenatal life suddenly becomes disposable. Doesn’t that devalue all human life?

Christianity goes beyond just respecting other people’s rights. It says: “in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Shouldn’t that also to apply to life in the womb?

Posted in all lives matter, equality, human body, human life, human rights, human sexuality, inequality, life matters, mother's womb, pro life, prolife prochoice, right to life, Uncategorized, value of life, womb | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

4 men, an elephant & the Bible . . .

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Steve Simms

4 men & an elephant can give you great insight into the Bible. Check this out!

When people tell you that there are contradictions in the Bible; think about an elephant. (To make sense of that statement, watch the first two minutes of this video!)

Posted in back to the Bible, Bible concepts, Bible interpretation, Bible quotations, Bible quotes, Bible reading, Bible stories, Bible study, Bible teaching, Bible verses, Christian mysticism, how to learn the Bible, interactive Bible class, mysticism, performing the Bible, staying faithful to the Bible, the Bible says, Uncategorized, understanding God, Western culture, what the Bible says about | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Sit & be told?” or “Go & be bold?”

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Steve Simms

The living experience of Christ is far more amazing than anything anyone can say about Him. To really understand the Gospel it must be more than preached. It must be personally experienced and lived. People learn what they do. To really learn Christianity we need to do Christianity.

When God’s inner rivers aren’t allowed to flow; God’s people aren’t able to fully grow. Let Jesus freely flow from within you! Once you begin to bask in the Spirit flowing from within you, it’s hard to be in a Christian meeting where He is shut down.

People come to church expecting to hear from a preacher. In early Christianity they came together expecting to hear from God. To hear your conscience is to hear from God. Listen! Pay attention to what’s going on in your heart and open the door when you hear Jesus knocking.

To hear a sermon, yet not personally experience what was preached, leaves a person with little more than fleeting head knowledge. However, the essence of Christianity is to know, experience, and daily obey the risen Jesus.

Let’s make church a Christ lab where we experiment with fresh ways of interacting with and obeying Jesus. Ekklesia is a faith-lab where Christians demonstrate the reality of the risen Jesus as they flow with the gifts of the Spirit.

Only you can manage your relationship with Jesus! If you try to delegate your responsibility to someone else, you may drift away. Christians have a responsibility to personally hear and obey the living Jesus, not just to go to church. Church’s message is “Sit & be told.” Jesus’ message is “Go & be bold.”

Sermons are available at church or on internet, TV, and radio; however, open, Spirit-led interaction in a body of believers is rare. If you want a sermon, they’re easy to find, however, if you want to meet with Christ-followers who practice 1 Corinthians 14:26; that’s almost extinct! (So why are modern churches almost universally sermonopolies?) Sermons are too often like retweets; merely repeating something a preacher saw, read, or heard somewhere else

How can Jesus be the Head of a church if the church meets under the headship of a pastor? Can a church have two heads?

Schools and colleges are graduating people. Why don’t churches ever graduate people and send them out to change the world?

Jesus promised inner rivers of living water. What clogs your soul? If you have no sense of sin, you may see Christ as an accessory, but you won’t see Him as a necessity. Without the idea of judgment, the concept of grace is meaningless.

Many emotional problems come from a reading disorder–the failure to consistently read positive, hopeful, uplifting material. (Like the Bible!)

What’s the world’s worst tasting mint? Discouragemint! Don’t put it in your mouth and don’t give it to others!

Oops! An atheist is a person who believes himself to be an accident. You’re too important for that to be true.

 

 

Posted in alternative to preaching, as bold as a lion, bold, bold statements, early Christianity, early Christians, early church, gifts of the Spirit, preaching the Gospel, preaching without words, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Ireland declares prenatal human life to be disposable

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Steve Simms

Ireland has joined most other Western nations in making prenatal human life legally disposable. Irish activist, Cora Sherlock, put it this way:

“What repealing or replacing the 8th Amendment would actually involve, if voted through, is stripping unborn babies of all meaningful protections which in turn would inevitably lead to countless babies having their lives deliberately ended with the full sanction of the State. That is the simple and stark reality.”

But how can making human life disposable in one stage not devalue it in every other stage of life? If you and I had no value in the womb, it doesn’t make any sense that we would suddenly be of value now that we are outside of the womb.

By declaring human life to be worthless in the womb, it seems that Western culture has caused some people to follow the logic and to see life as worthless outside the womb. Perhaps the appearance and rise of random mass murders of innocent people in our Western culture is an example of this. The random killing of innocent people isn’t just crazy; it’s unbelievably evil

Society has lost sight of the value of human life. Each human life is of greater value than all the world’s great art works combined. The idea of disposable plastic is destroying our planet. The idea of disposable humanity is demolishing respect for human life.

Alice Paul (born in 1885) was an early, American suffragist, feminist, and women’s right’s advocate. She said: “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” (Half of its victims are female.)

A person cannot be lectured into godliness, that takes an inward, spiritual transformation. However, your life matters and so do all other human lives in all other stages. Disposable diapers are one thing. Disposables babies are another!

The yes vote in the Irish referendum illustrates this principle: When godly Christian influence is strong, society hides its evil — when weak, society openly displays evil and even boast about it.

Here is some godly influence: Mother Teresa sums it up with these words: “I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is ‘Abortion’, because it is a war against the child… A direct killing of the innocent child, ‘Murder’ by the mother herself… And if we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

disposable

Posted in anti-abortion, babies, choose life, disrespect, human life, mass murders, mass shootings, mother's womb, murders, prenatal, prenatal care, prenatal medicine, prenatal rights, prochoice, prolife, prolife prochoice, random mass killings, respect for life, Uncategorized, Western culture, What do they do with aborted babies, why mass shootings, womb | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What are the essential beliefs for Christianity?

Posted on May 22, 2018 by Steve Simms

When Christians begin to think about and discuss unity, the question of doctrine always comes up. How do we overcome doctrinal disagreement?

Augustine, a Christian brother who lived in the fourth century, answered that question this way: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

Every belief system (and/or worldview) has essential beliefs. For instance, it is essential to atheism to believe that there is no such thing as God, a god, or gods. If someone believes in God, by definition, she/he is not an atheist.

Every belief system also has non-essential beliefs. For instance, one atheist may believe in the Big Bang and another atheist may believe that the universe has always existed. However, they are both still atheists because neither of those beliefs is essential to atheism.

So what are the essential truths of Christianity? The book of 1 John, tells us how to recognize them. “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.”

According to John, if a spirit (or doctrine) acknowledges that Jesus has come in the flesh it is of God. If it doesn’t, it is not from God. So certain beliefs about who Jesus is, are essential. If we redefine Jesus and deny who He is, we have broken with essential Christian teaching.

So how do we know who Jesus is? Fortunately, Jesus told us who He is, and we have His words in Scripture. He told His disciples and we also have many of their words. Jesus also revealed Himself through Old Testament writers and we have their words as well.

Jesus is God in human flesh. He is the Messiah (the Christ) that the Jews were looking for. He is the sacrifice for our sin. He is Lord (Absolute Master). He is bodily risen from the dead. He is present as the Spirit when we gather in His name. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

If someone says they are a Christian, yet continually affirms a doctrine that denies or redefines who Jesus is, they have broken with Christianity. Paul confirms this by warning us against following “another Jesus” (a redefined Jesus).

As John wrote, some teachings (and the spirits behind those teachings) are not from God. Both Jesus and many of His first followers warned us to watch out for false prophets. We need discernment and wisdom not to follow or support any teachings or teachers that redefine who Jesus is.

So in order to have Christian unity we unite around Jesus. It is important that we unite on the essentials of who He is. This doesn’t mean that we try to force or coerce people to believe the essentials, but that we don’t try to have Christian unity with people who redefine Jesus. We need to love them and serve them, but we shouldn’t accept their doctrines that redefine Jesus, to be Christian teachings.

As far as other doctrines that don’t redefine Jesus, Christ-followers have much liberty and diversity in our beliefs. We all see in part so let’s love one another (and all people) in spite of our doctrinal differences, “speaking the truth in love.”

Posted in atheism, Atheists, Augustine, belief system, Bible teaching, Christ, Christian, discerning of spirits, Jesus Christ, liberty, Love one another, Messiah, religious beliefs, speaking the truth in love, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Church can be like a full 747 sitting on the tarmac with no fuel

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Steve Simms

Having church without the active leading of the Spirit is like sitting on the tarmac in a full 747 with no fuel. A plane full of people won’t go anywhere without fuel. Neither will a church without the supernatural working of the Spirit.

When the fruit of the Spirit isn’t present in abundance, somebody’s quenching the Spirit. (Love, joy, peace, patience . . .) There’s no such thing as “church as usual” when the Holy Spirit is free to work.

Preachers talk to you, but the Holy Spirit wants to freely flow from inside you. (See John 7:38.) The biblical purpose of preaching is not endless proclamation to the same passive people but radical and disruptive transformation. Pentecost was an abrupt and disruptive interruption of the norm, turning bankrupt believers into world changers. Do it again, Lord! The events of Pentecost show that the Holy Spirit doesn’t follow a program!

Isn’t it odd that although Pentecost was not liturgical, programmed or controlled; church services commemorating it are? Pentecost as a religious service is benign; but Pentecost as present reality is revolutionary! To celebrate Pentecost without God’s surging power is like swiping a phone that doesn’t have a battery.

What is the “cost” of a new Pentecost? It is stepping away from programs and human-control, into the spontaneity of the Spirit! Pentecost is Christ’s power working in and through all His people, not programs & preaching for the passive. (See Acts 2.)

The devoted religious leaders of the time rejected Jesus in the flesh. Today we must be careful not to reject Him in the Spirit! The Pharisees were Bible-believers; the Sadducees were Bible-repudiators. Both saw a living Jesus as a threat and wanted Him dead.

When church established a clergyopoly it confined “ordinary” Christians to the role of spectators. Too many Christians today feel like they are nothing but spiritual spectators; passively sitting through a church service, listening to Christian music and radio, watching Christian TV, attending a conference or concert.

Christianity is about direct revelation from God and living demonstrations of Christ more than about religion, regulations, and ritual! Christians are called “the body of Christ,” not “the organization of Christ.” There’s no place for vanity in Christianity. Celebrate Jesus, not a preacher or a program or a particular organization.

Being Bible-taught without the Spirit, can dry up in textualism. Being Spirit-taught without the Bible, can blow up in deception. Hearing Christ explained is nice, but it can’t compare to Christ continually experienced in everyday life.

Listen to hope; not to discouragement. Heartily hunt for hope; determinedly dodge discouragement! If you aren’t finding the inner peace you’re looking for, get close to Jesus.

I find hope in a relationship with the risen Jesus. It is the most absorbing, addicting, and amazing thing on earth! (Christ loves us so much that He gives us the freedom to not love Him back.)

Church attendance without heart and lifestyle transformation is religion without results. Perhaps the question, “What do you do when not in church?” is more important than the question, “Do you go to church?”

The Bible never says, “You in church, the hope of glory.” It says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Perhaps when Jesus said, “Occupy till I come,” He didn’t mean to occupy a church seat every Sunday.”

The gifts of the Spirit can’t work through the body of Christ if one man does all the talking. We need to stop ignoring this Bible verse: “Now to each one (not just to 1 pastor) the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

I can’t find anything in the Bible that gives pastors a monopoly on preaching. Can you? I think early Christian preaching was more facilitation than lecture. (See 1 Corinthians 14:26) Jesus opened up “a new and living way” so we can all “draw near to God” (not just hear a talk about Him).

If after Pentecost Sunday we have no more power from God & passion for God than we did before, we somehow missed the point! “Ekklesia” is to meet with and interact with the living Jesus, together with others, letting Him directly lead the gathering. Let’s go back to ekklesia!

Posted in another Pentecost, church program, clergy, clergy laity, discouragement, Feast of Pentecost, first Pentecost, flowing in the Spirit, fruit of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, inner peace, pentecostal experience, Quench not the Spirit, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ekklesia, like a support group, helped me heal

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Steve Simms

(I first wrote this for ONE Body Life’s blog @ this link.)

Too many people feel like Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean-French filmmaker. He said: “I am not a normal person. I am living in a normal body, but my mind is not normal.”

That’s how I used to feel. I grew up emotionally insecure and self-conscious, believing that I was strange and abnormal — never feeling like I really fit in with “normal” people. Then I started meeting with a non-denominational group of Christians that met something like a support group (what the Greek New Testament calls ekklesia).

As people opened up and shared in the group, I saw that they had the same “abnormal” insecurities and thoughts that I did. (Comedy writer Joe Ancis put it this way: “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.) Soon I begin to feel a real sense of oneness and unity with them.

The truth is that all human beings are basically the same. The Good News Bible puts it this way: “Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

The problem is that most of us try to get other people to believe that we are better off than we really are. We’re all weird. Some people just hide their weirdness more than others do.

We usually don’t want other people to know how messed up we are and how much we struggle. However, Christians are told to “walk in the light” — to open up and be completely honest about what we are going through, so that we can encourage and help one another.

You are not strange or alone. It’s normal to struggle and mess up in various degrees. We need to open up and lovingly help each another get back on track. That’s the key to unity and healing in the body of Christ. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

Posted in Christ-centered recovery, Christian recovery, emotional honesty, honesty, Isaiah 53, recovery groups, recovery quotes, self-discovery, self-esteem, self-help, self-worth, small groups, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fresh insights on royalty

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Steve Simms

A British Royal Wedding is a huge, world-wide event. But what is royalty really? Could you be a royal — born to royal ancestry?

Royal–a king or queen or a member of their family. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”

Posted in bride of Christ, events, humble, humility, king, King of Kings, kingdom, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, kingdom of priests, kingdom values, kings and kingdoms, marriage, royal family, royal priesthood, Uncategorized, weddings | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Story Of “Blest Be The Tie That Binds”

Posted on May 16, 2018 by Steve Simms

In 1765, John and Mary Fawcett went to minister in Wainsgate, a rural English community, described as: “farmers and shepherds, poor as Job’s turkey; an uncouth lot whose speech one could hardly understand, unable to read or write; most of them pagans cursed with vice and ignorance and wild tempers. The established church had never touched them.”

They began to minister from house to house and built a small congregation. Eventually they had four children, but at Wainsgate they struggled with very little money. Eventually John was offered a pastorate and a very good salary at a famous church in London. They decided to accept the offer.

After preaching a farewell sermon, John and Mary and their children had a cart loaded with all their belongings. People gathered around them and were crying and hugging them. Mary said: “I can’t stand it John. I know not how to go.” John responded: “Lord help me, Mary, nor can I stand it! We will unload the wagon.”

Then John told the people: “We’ve changed our minds! We are going to stay!” And everybody began to rejoice and celebrate. Later John wrote a song about the unity and love that his family experienced with the believers at Wainsgate.

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts is Christian love.
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder past
It gives us inward pain,
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

The Fawcetts stayed with the people in Wainsgate for the rest of John’s life letting the rivers of living water flow there for 54 years in all. John said: “The Lord is a fountain of life, of strength, of grace and comfort.”

Here’s one of John’s prayers: “O blessed Jesus, Your love is wonderful! It is the admiration, joy and song of glorified saints. The experimental sense of Your love on earth sweetens the bitterness of life and disarms death of all its terrors!”

Here is how John taught people to stay strong in the love of God: “Love to Jesus is maintained and continued in its warmth and fervor – by frequent meditation on His adorable person, His dying love, and His infinite excellence and preciousness. If we lose sight of Jesus as the spring of all our happiness, and of His ineffable glories, the fervency of our love for Him will be abated.”

Posted in bear one another's burdens, Christ-centered community, Christian community, Christian unity, church community, fellowship, love, one in the Spirit, prayers, praying community, the beloved community, Uncategorized, unity | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment