Trying to See and Hear Beyond Soundbites

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What are your daily habits?
View all responses

I have the daily habit of trying to see and hear beyond soundbites. In today’s culture of anything goes lifestyles and religions, that’s not an easy thing to do.

The Bible warns us: “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!” One way that is being done is through Bible soundbites. Here’s an example:

This is the ignored and forgotten part of a sentence in the Bible. “. . . but God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.” The first part says: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him . . .” The first part without the second part is an incomplete soundbite that is often quoted alone. That misleads people into believing that their experience of God is limited to what their eyes can see and what their ears can hear, but the truth is that God is trying to supernaturally reveal Himself to people all the time, yet we rarely open the invisible eyes and ears of our heart. When the eyes and the ears of our heart are shut down, our seeing and hearing are limited to the physical world, and we can’t see and hear the glory of the Lord. Where are the Christ-followers who will warn people “day and night with their tears?”

The Holy Spirit wants to show you things that eye can’t see, and ear can hear. Learn to look and listen with your heart. The best glasses and the best hearing aids are a humble heart that’s hungering and thirsting to experience more and more of Jesus.

Knowing God involves more than the human eye can see or the ear can hear. It requires insight that only God can reveal to people. Unless you literally perceive the actual presence of God, He will seem like only a theory in your mind. If you aren’t allowing God to constantly work in your heart, Bible knowledge will do you little good. Sound doctrine and teaching require more than religious head knowledge!

To settle for less than continually interacting with “Christ in you the hope of glory,” is to miss the whole point of Christianity. If instead of becoming institutionalized Christians would let the risen Jesus continually revitalize them from within, their faith would be ever on fire!

Unless you see and hear directly from God, with the invisible eyes and ears of your heart, you will never know what it means to be led by the Spirit. You won’t know what it is to have the Holy Spirit warn you.

True Christianity is a Spirit-led lifestyle. (See Romans 8:14.) The only credentials that a Christ-follower needs are the name of Jesus and a lifestyle of being led by His Spirit.

Learn to look and listen
With the eyes and ears
Of your heart
And God’s Spirit will start
To show you more than
You can ask or think.

By the free gift
Of God’s grace
People are invited
To taste and see
That the Lord is good,
And to be led
By His Spirit
Into a lifestyle
Of joyous surrender
To His presence
And His will.

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My Witness to Sustainable Life

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Are there things you try to practice daily to live a more sustainable lifestyle?
View all responses

Witnessing about what’s good and hopeful makes a life of peace and joy more sustainable. It increases my hope. To witness is to experience something. To be a witness is to tell what you’ve experienced. If you have experienced hope and encouragement, be a witness. Share it with others.

Unless you witness to it, people won’t know the many things that God is doing and has done in and around you. Go tell someone!

If you have witnessed God do anything, tell somebody! Without witnesses people will think that God isn’t doing much. A Christ-follower should be a witness, always pointing out the living Jesus, not a promoter pointing to self-acclaim. When few people are willing to personally witness to what the risen Jesus is doing, people begin to think that He’s not doing much.

Still, staying silent about what the risen Jesus is doing in and through them has become a way of life for far too many Christians. Perhaps they have hardened their heart and are no longer noticing Christ’s presence.

The power of a firsthand testimony about how Jesus is working in someone’s heart is immense. Don’t hide it! Humbly telling people how God is working in and around you can open up a conversation that might very well change their life.

If you’ve encountered Jesus, tell somebody. Jesus told His followers: “You shall be My witnesses.” If Jesus has done anything in your life, take the witness stand and testify about it.

Witnesses use words not to preach but to testify. Silence shuts down their witness. Speak up about what Jesus has done in you.

The way to witness about how Jesus is working in you is to speak from your heart with humility and honesty. Try it! Work on your willingness to listen directly to the risen Jesus so you can hear Him better and witness to what He tells you.

Effective Spirit-led witness to Christ is based on humility. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Christ’s Spirit-led witnesses bring a reality check. They testify (tell and show us) that there is more to life than we are seeing. They help us see what we’re missing so that we can taste and see greater peace and joy than we can imagine.

For Christ-followers the witness stand is everywhere they go. Will you take the stand for Christ? Your words that witness to the reality of the living Jesus may be the only witness that someone hears about Him.

It’s time for Christians
To fully realize
That we need
To verbalize
And put into words
What Jesus is doing
In and around us.
It hard to know
What motivates
A wordless witness.
Let people know
That anything good
They see in you
Comes from Jesus
Not from self-effort.

I witness Jesus
Working in, through
And around me
Every day,
So I can’t be silent.
I have to say,
The risen Jesus
Is the Way
To a sustainable life
Of peace and joy.

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The Pleasure of Sex

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Steve Simms

The purpose of the pleasure of sex isn’t self-gratification. It’s much greater than that. The pleasure of sex is designed to assure the reproduction of humanity and to connect a man and a woman heart-to-heart so they can build a beautiful life-long relationship of light and love, thus enriching each other, their children, and their community.

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Be Led by a Lion to Taste and See and Be Amazed!

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?
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These words from ancient history are powerful: “O taste and see.” People can tell us about an amazingly delicious food but until we taste and see for ourselves, their words are only hearsay. That’s the problem with modern Christianity. It tries to tell people about the glorious experience of following Jesus by using weak weekly religious talks alone when what people need are profound experiences with the risen present Jesus. “O taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Alexander the Great said: “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” Christians are called to be sheep led by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah — the risen Jesus! If Christians will come together to follow and obey the living Jesus instead of religious programs, they will change the world!

Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.” Churches should train Christ’s sheep to share what they hear God’s Spirit saying. Jesus went on to say, “And they follow Me.” Follow the risen Jesus, not routine religion. Sheep who ignore the Shepherd eventually get eaten by wolves.

When Christ’s sheep are kept silent and set in rows to hear a weekly religious speech they are sheared of the humble heart-to-heart sharing of Spirit-led community. When Christ’s sheep gather, let them all be free to speak as the Spirit prompts them.

Christianity isn’t about personalities and celebrities. Keep your eyes on Jesus alone! Talk about Jesus, not about a preacher. If the risen Jesus isn’t the center of attention in a church service, it’s way out of focus. I’ve always wondered why the name on a church sign is the name of a preacher instead of the name of Jesus.

Christians who like to talk up a preacher are missing the point. A preacher is a mere messenger who is supposed to focus people’s attention on the risen Jesus. Sheep who ignore the true Shepherd eventually get eaten by wolves.

None the less, for some reason churches and Christian conferences usually leave Jesus off the program. I don’t think I have ever seen this on a program: “Lord and Savior: Jesus Christ.” Churches need to stop counting sheep and begin to count on and rely on the presence of the living resurrected Jesus.

If the preacher doesn’t show up for church people get upset. If Jesus doesn’t show up people often don’t even notice. When you’re thinking about the church you attend who do you think of first, Jesus or the pastor?

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Posted in Christian experience, Christian spirituality, lion of the tribe of Judah, spiritual experiences, spiritual formation | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My Favorite Outfit Is Like “The Emperor’s New Clothes” — Invisible (but Not Imaginary)

Posted on June 24, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?
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I love to dress for the success of overcoming distress! I love to have the belt of truth around my waist. Wearing honesty keeps me humble and real.

I cover my chest with the breastplate of righteousness by doing my best to obey my conscience and when I violate it to quickly get back on track. I like to wear shoes that lead me to inner peace and to peace with other people.

I like to cover myself with the shield of faith so that I can resist, refute, and repel the troubling thoughts, desires, and emotions that attack my heart and mind. I put on the helmet of salvation by letting the risen Jesus lead me from within.

I use the Bible like a sword to defeat my inner enemies. I pray in the Spirit throughout the day by speaking in languages that the Holy Spirit powerfully releases from deep within me.

The Bible tells me to “Put on the full armor of God.” That’s the outfit I wear over and over again. For more google: Ephesians 6:10-18.

How’s your spiritual hydration? Are God’s rivers of living water ever flowing from deep within you like a glorious fountain? If you aren’t as close to Jesus as you used to be, now is the time to return wholeheartedly to your first love for Him.

A key to inner peace in troubling times is to look for people to encourage. (They shouldn’t be difficult to find.) Be a person who sincerely speaks “many words of encouragement” to people. When you face resistance refuse to be discouraged. Continue to cultivate a sense of caring heart-to-heart community with people. Help people experience, hold on to, and lavishly spread faith, hope, and love. Give encouragement and it will be given to you as rivers of living water flowing from your innermost being. 😀 (Based on Acts 20:1-6.)

The rainbow has become a symbol of the far left and the term Christian identified with the hard right, but both belong to a much higher purpose — the work of God as presented in the Bible. Go beyond the left or the right. Experience “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Any society that produces multitudes of stressed out, anxious, angry, addicted, discouraged, or depressed people is bad for your mental health. Avoid listening to its messages. Instead find people who are filled with hope, joy, and inner peace and focus on the positive messages they are listening to.

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The Concept That Life Is More Than Physical Continually Revitalizes My Mental Health

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
How important is spirituality in your life?
View all responses

I find the idea that the physical world is all that there is to be quite disconcerting. Without spirituality I don’t see any hope for me or for humanity in general. Without a vision beyond the material a human life is just a highly complex machine that ends in annihilation — nothing more; nothing less — purposeless and meaningless.

I encountered and opened my heart to Jesus-centered spirituality when I was a freshman in college, and it began to immediately revolutionize my thinking, my perception, and my life. Cultivating and developing an ever-growing relationship with the risen Jesus continually fills me with hope, peace, and faith, regardless of my outward circumstances. I totally recommend it to everyone! How many stars do I rate Jesus-centered spirituality? Go to a totally dark place deep in the country and look at the heavens.

When God is set aside the following things happen to a person. This is based on Psalm 10 and on my observation of American culture.

When there’s no room for God in people’s thoughts, they begin to pridefully think: “I can run my own life, keep myself happy, and stay out of trouble,” “What I’m thinking and doing is hidden from God,” and “I’ll never have to answer to anybody for my thoughts, words, and actions.” Those people renounce God, embrace self-focus, and boast about cravings and compulsions.

If you will make room for God in your thoughts, open your heart to Him, and start to listen to and obey His still small voice, He will begin to direct you from within by His presence, and lead you to love, joy, peace, and all the rest of the fruit of His Spirit. Dare to prepare the way for God to continually work inside of you. Then you will inwardly begin to soar like an eagle.

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The Best “Self-Care” Is to Turn Your Focus Away from Self

Posted on June 22, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
How do you practice self-care?
View all responses

The more I try to find myself, the more I experience unhappiness. The more I turn my focus away from myself, the happier I am. It’s a paradox. Forgetting about yourself and your problems is a wonderful way to find heart-felt joy. People who consistently regularly do acts of kindness to directly help other people experience that kind of spontaneous inner joy. You can too. Go physically help somebody who is hurting or struggling and see for yourself. Go volunteer.

Another way to turn focus away from self and receive great joy is to open your heart to the presence, power, and reality of the risen Jesus Christ. Start humbly and honestly talking with Jesus from your heart. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you. When the inner light comes on you will be overcome with awe and amazement and the awareness of your problems and struggles will fade away in His presence. Surrender all to Him and begin to listen to and obey His still small voice throughout each day. Then His presence inside of you will begin to produce the fruit of His Spirit in your life: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” No form of self-care can compare with fully surrendering yourself to Jesus.

One thing that helps with self-surrender is a simple and humble gift of the Spirit that is presented in two books of the Bible: Acts and 1 Corinthians. It’s called speaking in tongues and involves the action of supernaturally speaking words that you don’t know. It’s an extremely powerful action that I do every day. (In yesterday’s post I described its benefits.) Here’s something I wrote about it today:

I was amazed to read in today’s Wake-Up Call blog:

“I was asleep living in my own comforts and daily life. A friend called me and told me in so many words that God had more for me and needed me. He sent me a sermon to listen to. I’ll be honest I had eight other tabs open and was kinda sorta listening. At one point the man speaking started to pray in tongues. Suddenly the Holy Spirit flooded me and I started weeping, overwhelmed with God’s love and presence. It had been years and years since I had felt God in that way.”

I wrote this before I saw Today’s Call:

Tongues isn’t about self. It’s about surrender, brokenness, and humility. There’s nothing prideful about it. There’s no point to prove. Tongues isn’t about the mind; it’s about surrender of the heart and the will to the direct control of the Holy Spirit and letting Him freely flow from within with Spirit-given utterance. Testifying about gift of tongues is no different than testifying about salvation. They are both supernatural works of God that we need to shout from the housetops so that people trapped by hopelessness and despair can hear and see the reality and power of the living, resurrected Jesus.”

If you listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying and do what He says, amazing things will happen. The world needs to see people who say they are Christians, living a Spirit-led, book of Acts, lifestyle. Will you?

Good or bad
The words you hear
Will program you
And influence
How you feel
And what you do.
Choose to hear
Words of hope,
Of wisdom,
And of kindness
So mental health
And inner peace
Can flourish
Within you.

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Posted in mental health, self-care, self-focus, self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Self-focus Wastes My Time (This Helps Me Soar Beyond It)

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
How do you waste the most time every day?
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Self-focus is a waste of my time and hinders my pursuit of inner peace, love and joy. Those things come from looking beyond myself. Here’s an amazing activity that always helps me to look beyond myself and to experience inner peace, love and joy.

I have discovered that a powerful way to move beyond my proud human spirit and loud self-focus, into trust in and surrender to God’s Spirit, is to pray in tongues every time I feel discouraged, tempted, or tormented. Because of that I pray in tongues many times each day.

This is what frequently speaking in tongues does in and through me:
* It confronts and humbles my pride as I regularly use such a simple and humble gift by surrendering control of what I am saying to Jesus and speaking out words that I don’t understand.
* It causes me to intimately and intensely experience the awareness of the risen Lord Jesus living inside of and freely flowing through me.
* It aligns and tunes my heart and will to the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
* It moves me beyond mere mental concepts of Christ into actual and active surrender to and direct interaction with His inner presence.
* It edifies me by encouraging, strengthening and empowering me.
* It gives me supernatural strength to resist the world’s negativity, temptation, discouragement, doubt, fear, loneliness, worry, anger, deception, and other carnal brainwashing.
* It opens me up to more of God’s inner power to resist sin, hear and obey Jesus, and be a more effective witness for Him.
* It trains me to flow with and appreciate the “least” of the gifts of the Spirit (tongues) so that I can grow into and experience other gifts of the Spirit operating in and through me.
* It helps me to cultivate, overflow with, and demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

One of the main purposes of the spiritual gift of tongues is to build up, strengthen, and empower individual Christ-followers. “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.” (1 Corinthians 14:4 NKJ) If we don’t first receive the gift of the oxygen of God’s Spirit to edify us, how can we help others to receive that gift of personal edification? Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit, but they also must be received and used by believers. They don’t take over and control people. They work with our free will. The Bible says, “You have not because you ask not.” Jesus said, “Ask (in Greek ‘keep on asking’) and you shall receive.”

Here are two more things that the Bible says about tongues. “I would you all speak in tongues . . .” and “Do all speak in tongues?” (With an implied no.) I believe every Spirit-filled Christian can speak in tongues, but many don’t. Tongues (though the least of the spiritual gifts) is a beautiful gift that can help any Christian experience the risen Jesus in more powerful and intimate ways by releasing the Spirit’s inner rivers of living water through your voice.

Also, in Acts 2, the Bible says, “They began to speak in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance.” They did the speaking and moved their own vocal cords, but the words came from the Spirit. As they spoke in various languages that they didn’t know (tongues), bystanders heard their own language. In a crowd of people speaking many different languages which one will you recognize? Your own language is the one that will stand out to you.

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This Historical Figure Keeps Me Hysterical with Love, Joy, and Peace!

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Who is your favorite historical figure?
View all responses

Roaring crowds like to gather to shout the greatness of sports teams and musicians for hours. Sports and music are treasured to the point of idolatry, but they are no gods at all. They are merely a focus for pleasure producing pride — a place to shout, “We’re number one!” “We’re the coolest!” “We’re the greatest!”

There is one human being who is proclaimed as the greatest of all time — the Creator in human flesh. He’s not a sports or music “g.o.a.t.” He’s the lamb of God — the sacrifice for human sin who gave His life on the Cross, was buried, and rose to live again forever. He is Lord — the King, Sovern, and Master of the Universe.

“I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever.’” (Revelation 5:11-13.) I love to join with that crowd throughout the day and boldly worship Jesus the risen Lord!

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Popular Culture and Contemporary Religion Are Both Denying Much That Is Self-Evident,

Posted on June 19, 2024 by Steve Simms

In the Gospels, Jesus warned His followers to beware of false prophets. That’s a warning that Christians seem to ignore today. Almost anybody who says he or she is a Christian minister and starts a church or buys radio or TV time (regardless of what they teach) is honored and respected. We know false prophets exist, but we hesitate to point them out because if we do so we will be called judgmental and unloving by both Christians and non-Christians. We need to learn to boldly yet humbly speak the truth in love. That’s what I try to do.

Christ-followers are called to go with the inner flow of God’s Spirit, not with the turbulence of temptation, deception, and popular opinion that shuts down their conscience and drowns out the still, small voice of God within them. We need to search the Scriptures and let their words continually burn in our heart and constantly renew our mind.

Society says “follow the science” but many opinions promoted by society reject these self-evident truths:

* The massive amount of carbon emissions caused by human activity are negatively impacting the planet.
* There are only two genders.
* A growing human fetus is alive and to abort it is to take his or her life away.
* For a two-party democracy to work, neither side can force its will on the other. Compromise and working together are essential for its long-term survival.
* Creating blame, confusion, anger, and hostility will eventually produce chaos.
* Kindly disagreeing with someone’s behavior or opinion is neither hatred nor judgment. It’s the freedom of conscience and the freedom of speech.

The bold and public rejection of such self-evident truth will eventually undermine the foundations of society and civil discourse. Constantly repeated falsehoods never become true, but they eventually deceive many people into believing that they are true.

To obscure the obvious opens the door to override objectivity with opinion. Seek to observe the obvious.

True transformation isn’t about changing your body, it’s about renewing your mind. (Romans 12:2.) Without the clear boundaries of male and female, sexuality becomes a jungle of confusion.

Here’s a popular miss-use of words:

When conception has occurred and a new life has begun to grow and develop, killing that life stops reproduction. It’s not “reproductive” and isn’t a “reproductive right.”

True love is to put the well-being of someone else before your own:

Your mother
Let your life
Live and grow
In her body
For nine months.
She chose love.

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