Being Free from Controlling Thoughts, Feelings, Desires, and Habits

Posted on May 11, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What does freedom mean to you?
View all responses

Freedom isn’t words. It isn’t an idea or an ideal. Freedom isn’t a form of government. It isn’t produced by patriotism. Freedom is within. If a person is bound to thoughts, feelings, desires, and habits, he or she isn’t free.

God is always wanting to communicate with people so He can set them free, but we are too often unwilling to hear His voice speaking within us (especially when He disagrees with us). A person who is too distracted (or unwilling) to receive direct communication from the living God will be swept along by the inner wolves of self-driven desires and insecurities and by the influence of self-focused people.

Wolves within your heart that are camouflaged in sheep’s clothing cause much confusion and corrosion. Ask God to reveal them to you so you can drive them out and find peace at last.

True Christian leadership always glorifies the Lord. Any leadership that glories in personal accomplishment isn’t Christian. It’s a slave to self-focus. Whoever tries to convince people that he is more than he is becomes less, because he becomes a deceiver and a liar. Be honest and humble.

Lies can shout loud and long. That makes them deceptively dangerous, but it never makes them true. Neither hate a person because of their words and behaviors nor accept and embrace words or behaviors because of a person.

If you always reply to replies, a conflict or disagreement will never end. Try something different. Do what Jesus said to do. “Bless those who curse you.” Then notice what happens to the conflict.

The more you defend sin, the more you become its detainee. Then you stay captured and chained to its compulsive thoughts, desires, and behaviors.

There is something that God has given me the ability to do that brings great joy and freedom in God as well as intense awareness of His presence far beyond anything my emotions, intellect, or physical pleasure can produce. The Bible calls it speaking in tongues. It’s something completely supernatural that I could never do without God. It’s an inner flow of unending words from deep within me (that I don’t know) that can be spoken and released at any time. Whenever I do, I am embraced with a closeness to God that is indescribable. This humbling yet incredible and undeserved gift from God has released power and peace and healing and so many other wonderful things within me. Its benefit is incalculable. I highly recommend asking God for this gift and using it throughout each day.

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Jesus is Way Beyond Religion

Posted on May 10, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What public figure do you disagree with the most?
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I disagree with almost all public figures on the topic of faith and religion. I’ve been molded from within by spiritual experience, by a ravenous appetite to live out what the Bible says, and by an overwhelming love for and desire to follow and obey the risen Jesus Christ. If you ever feel like you need more of Jesus than religion has to offer, read this:

Christ’s sinless inner rivers (1 John 3:5) are our hope and strength. The more we let them flow the stronger we will grow and the more we will know His presence within us and experience His power over sin. (2 Timothy 1:6)

I love to put aside my resistance (1 Thessalonians 5:19) and let pure mountain streams come rushing from deep within me (John 7:37-39) with God’s life-giving inner flow (John 4:14) — cleansing, empowering, and carrying me day after day. I often open my mouth and release refreshing roaring rivers to flow through my lips in languages that I’ve never learned. (Acts 2:4) At other times I listen with my inner ears as the Holy Spirit’s whitewaters speak my mother tongue within me and communicate with wisdom, inspiration, and revelation. (1 Corinthians 2:10)

I love to write what God’s rivers say and post it so that people who read it can run with it. (Habakkuk 2:2) Open your heart and be led (Romans 8:14) by the Spirit of Christ. (Romans 8:9)

God’s inner rivers always hit their target, but we humans always struggle and miss the mark when we slow them down or shut them off. (Colossians 1:27) Make it your aim to abide in Christ (John 15:4) and keep the Spirit’s rivers always freely flowing within you so that Christ’s sinlessness can manifest through you. (Luke 3:4) (Amos 5:14)

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The Best Career Plan

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What is your career plan?
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The best career plan for me has been to stay inwardly attentive and to ceaselessly seek guidance and direction from within me. I believe that an amazing presence has been living inside of me since I was 19. That is the presence of the risen Jesus Christ. I ask Him to lead and to guide me and I try to focus my attention on Him throughout each day. The results so far have produced an amazingly rewarding career and life, and more is still to come.

True hope in Jesus causes people to continually focus their attention on Him, (Hebrews 12:2) to hunger and thirst for righteousness, (Matthew 5: 6) and to seek first His kingdom. (Matthew 6:33) As they do they purify themselves day after day as He is pure. (1 John 3;3) The more people allow themselves to be led by His Spirit (Romans 12:11) the more they are aware that Christ is literally living inside of them (Colossians 1:27) and the more they realize and are attentive and surrendered to the love that God has given them by making them His children. (1 John 3:1)

Unceasingly behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. (John 1:29) The more you behold the risen Jesus and grasp the reality of God’s love, the more you will become filled with the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

A new Pope
Can bring hope
But Jesus
Christ in you
Is the hope
Of glory
Unending.

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I Love to See Discipleship

Posted on May 8, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What was the last live performance you saw?
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A disciple-developing church is much more powerful than an audience-attracting church. Yet, disciple-developing churches are extremely rare. Too many Christians want self-gratification more than they want Christ’s inner transformation. (Romans 12:2)

A discipleship church produces Spirit-led Christ-followers not mere service attendees. Discipleship church is about training and releasing people to listen to and obey God the Holy Spirit. It refuses to make people be a passive audience.

There is no discipleship without the self-discipline and humility to listen to and obey God the Holy Spirit, day and night. It does no good to listen to a sermon if you won’t apply the biblical aspects of that sermon to your daily life. (James 1:22)

Beyond the subjectivity of your desires and emotions, and the rationality of your mind, there is a wisdom that comes directly from the inner objectivity of God the Holy Spirit. To learn to be led by the Spirit’s wisdom is true life! That’s discipleship.

Disciples:

  • Love one another. (1 Peter 4:8)
  • Hunger and thirst for righteousness. (Matthew 5:6)
  • Are doers of the word, not hearers only. (James 1:22)
  • Seek first the kingdom (inner government) of God. (Matthew 6:33)
  • Bring their every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
  • Teach and admonish one another. (Colossians 3:16)
  • Deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus. (Luke 9:23)
  • Rejoice in the Lord always. (Philippians 4:4)
  • Serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)
  • Are led by the Spirit. (Romans 8:14)
  • Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
  • Overflow with the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23)
  • Forgive one another. (Colossians 3:13)
  • Flow with the gifts of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:8-ll)
  • Humble themselves. (James 4:10)
  • Encourage one another. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
  • Quench not the Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:19)
  • Are witnesses. (Acts 1:8)
  • Consider others better than themselves. (Philippians 2:3)
  • Are givers. (Luke 6:38)
  • Bear one another’s burdens. (Galatians 6:2)
  • Are persecuted. (Matthew 5:10-12)
  • Love their enemies. (Matthew 5:44)
  • Bless those who curse them. (Luke 6:28)
  • Pray for those who despitefully use them. (Luke 6:28)
  • Speak the truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15)
  • Confess their sins to one another. (James 5:16)
  • Aren’t conformed to the world. (Romans 12:2)
  • Resist the devil. (James 4:7)
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The Community of Heart-to-Heart Unity

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What do you do to be involved in the community?
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The best opportunity
For true community
Is heart-felt unity
That comes through
Christ in you
Leading all you do.

Refuse to waver
From Christ the Savior.
Stay in God’s favor.
Let your heart savor
Christ’s presence each day
And your behavior
Be Spirit-prompted.

Christianity
Abandoned ship
When it gave up
Spirit-prompted
Discipleship
And fellowship,
To follow a script,
And sank into
Passivity.

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If I Could Be the Pope for Just One Day, This is What I’d Say

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?
View all responses

The keys to happiness are internal, not external. Your exterior situation can never fully satisfy you. Satisfaction is an interior experience. An external masquerade can hide your internal disfunction and pain, but it can never heal it.

Achieving exterior superiority won’t ever fully overcome your interior feelings of inferiority. New possessions bring fleeting pleasure, but the inner renewal of a joyful heart goes on and on.

Exterior problems can be outsourced, but you have to seek, hunger, and thirst for interior healing. Long-term happiness can never be found in external possessions. The key is to learn to possess, regulate, and control your own thoughts, feelings, and desires. Allowing your thoughts, feelings, and desires to dance around and define your destiny will drive out any delight that comes your way.

The internal characteristics that you cultivate or allow to grow within you will lead you to happiness or duress. Choose them well. Notice the thoughts, feelings, and desires that are trying to forcefully define, dominate and enslave you. Internally resist them.

Your exterior behavior reflects your interior nature. To consistently change externally you must first change internally.

Self-realization is the shocking awareness that I am insufficient. That I desperately need help. That I need to continually surrender my life to and align my life with the risen Jesus Christ.

The answer you need isn’t externally blowing in the wind. It’s aligning with Jesus Christ within. If you feel dead inside, there’s great hope. The living Jesus can give you internal life! Resist inner death and surrender to “Christ in you.”

Where is your heart? Is it indifferent toward Christ or intimate with Him? Is it receptive to Christ or resisting Him? Seek to be internally surrendered to Jesus, not externally religious.

Jesus said, “Deny yourself,” not “Rely on yourself.” Self-focused thoughts, feelings, and desires lead to self-consumed confusion, but self-denial paves the way for Christ’s inner peace. No amount of external security can produce deep peace in us until we allow the risen Jesus to continually heal and overcome our internal insecurity.

A person behind a mic
Cannot make you be Christ-like,
But Christ living in you can.
Let Jesus renew your psych.

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Promoting the Brand of Truth

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite brands and why?
View all responses

Honesty never deceives. It never hides in darkness. It always receives light and humbly submits to and aligns with reality “because no lie comes from the truth.” (1 John 2:21)

Dishonesty dances around truth and distorts it under the cover of darkness, but never fully embraces it. Dishonesty dips into truth and uses twisted parts of it as tools to strengthen deception.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:26) Surrendering your heart and life to be continually anointed by His presence and power always leads to truth. (1 John 2:20) To walk in the truth (3 John 1:3-4) fully surrender to “Christ in you,” (Colossians 1:27) and let Him help you to deny yourself, (Matthew 16:24) constantly lead you by His Spirit, (Romans 8:14) and keep you overflowing with “the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)

An amazing thing will happen if you’ll consistently live a Christ-centered, fully surrendered life. “You do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in Him.” (1 John 2:27)

True Christianity
Is always Christ-centered
And fully surrendered
To the risen Jesus
And to His anointing.

Jesus said: “Deny yourself,” not “Rely on yourself.” “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” ―G.K. Chesterton

If you attend church but don’t daily listen to and obey the living Jesus, you’ve missed the point of Christianity. No human religious organization is the body of Christ. Not one. Can we handle the truth?

The body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) is the worldwide family of God. (Ephesians 2:19) It’s parachurch. It’s beyond church. It works outside of and across denominations and institutional churches. The body of Christ is Spirit-led, relational, and organic. (Romans 8:14) The living Jesus is its only Head — if Christ isn’t the literal and active Head, then it’s not His body. The true body of Christ isn’t controlled by a human hierarchy. It consists of people who are connected to and surrendered heart-to-heart to the risen Jesus and to each other.

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I’m Always Looking for Advice

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
List the people you admire and look to for advice…
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I’m always looking for advice, day and night, but I don’t just ask anyone. I’ve found an amazing source of advice who never misleads me or lets me down. Pope Francis said: “I believe in God — not in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God. There is God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, His incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor.” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”

No idea? Ask your Creator.
Need advice? Ask the Creator.
Want less stress? Ask your Creator.
Don’t reinvent the week. Ask the Creator.
Wanna get unstuck from a rut? Ask your Creator.
Puzzled by life’s puzzles? Ask the Creator.
Can’t find forgiveness? Ask your Creator.
Confused about life? Ask the Creator.
Need a tune-up? Ask your Creator.
Looking for joy? Ask the Creator.
Can’t find forgiveness? Ask your Creator.
Got other problems you can’t solve? Ask the Creator.

“True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise or a vocal performance. It’s far deeper than that — it’s a spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.” –Charles Spurgeon

For creative ways to ask the Creator, google:
The Joy of Early Christianity.

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I Admire People Who Seek to Live Beyond Deception

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
List the people you admire and look to for advice…
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It’s easy to think that something is true with it isn’t. Often the truth is obscure or hidden and all we are left with is the fallibility of our feelings, desires, and opinions. No one is immune to deception. There is no vaccine that can prevent us humans from catching ahold of various lies. None of us knows (or says) the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Our human nature works in opposition to Christ. (Galatians 5:17) who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) That’s why we need to deny our self-focused desires and allow the risen Jesus to directly lead us by His Spirit moment by moment. (Luke 9:23) It’s much easier to follow self away from Christ than it is to follow Christ away from self. To remain close to Christ and continually abide intimately in His presence requires being poor in Spirit. (Matthew 5:3)

Pride pries us away from Jesus, humility draws us to Him. (James 4:6) How fortunate are people who have no confidence in their human nature (Philippians 3:3) for they are being trained to trust in and rely on King Jesus living and working within them through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 5:3)

Preaching that causes people to look toward and rely on a preacher more than on the actual presence and the direct inner leadership of the Holy Spirit, does great harm to Christianity. It makes people think that they have been spiritually fed when all they did was hear some words spoken to their head. That type of preaching is like hearing a talk about food (or watching Food Network) but not eating anything.

Preaching that describes or informs people about God but doesn’t cause people to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6) and for the kingdom of God, which is His inner government, is deceptive. (Matthew 6:33) Without life-changing Spirit-given inspiration, preaching is merely religious information. The preaching that is needed isn’t a studiously prepared message, but a message that so passionately burns in a preacher’s heart that it vividly demonstrates the power, presence, and reality of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

O how we need for the members of the body of Christ to step up and allow the Spirit of God to empower them to be sent ones (apostles), speakers of the truth in love (prophets), Christ spreaders (evangelists), spiritual shepherds (pastors), and disciple-making trainers (teachers). (Ephesians 4:11) Then the body of Christ can be built up, come to true unity in the faith, and experience the presence and reality of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians: 4:12)

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Vote With Your Lifestyle

Posted on May 2, 2025 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Do you vote in political elections?
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You constantly cast your vote for the kind of country you want by the way you conduct your life day after day. The things that you say and do speak colossally louder than your minuscule message in a ballot box. If you want to vote for respect, show it. To vote for prosperity, do honest and helpful work for it. To vote for social justice, treat all people with fairness and kindness. To vote for law and order, obey the law and always do what is right.

People who call themselves letter people live a lifestyle that matches their letter. Shouldn’t Christians live a lifestyle that matches their Savior?

Christ-followers are called to be distinctive from whatever society and country we live in. Let God the Holy Spirit empower and disciple you to discipline your desires so that they no longer conform to the pride and self-focus of the world around you but are transformed (Romans 12:2) by His forgiveness and grace and by the purity of His presence. Then you will be voting with your lifestyle for the kingdom of God and demonstrating King Jesus’ mercy and healing to everyone.

Self-focused desires
Will draw us away
From what God requires
And trap us in pride.
(1 John 2:16-17)

When sin is denied
And self-justified
It’s not qualified
For God’s mercy.
If you won’t confide
The wrong you have done
You’ll be unwilling
To truly receive
The great forgiveness
And deliverance
That God has supplied
Through Christ crucified.
(1 John 1:9)

Forgive and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37) To forgive someone 70 X 7 times is supernatural. (Matthew 18:21-22) We need to see more miracles like that! Let “Christ in you” empower you to be that kind of miracle.

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