I’ve not broken a bone, but I’ve been a dry bone.

Posted on May 19, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Have you ever broken a bone?
View all responses

I’ve never broken a bone. However, I was once a hopeless dry bone. Let me explain:

One day a man named Ezekiel had a vision of a valley of dry bones and he heard a question in his mind: “Can these bones live?”

While he was pondering the question, Ezekiel had this thought go through his mind: “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.'”

So, Ezekiel prophesied and as he did the dry bones began to come together in his vision and they were covered with flesh and skin. Then they begin to breathe and stood up as a vast army.

Then God told Ezekiel that those bones are God’s people. He told him that their bones are dried up and their hope is gone. God also told Ezekiel that He will put His Spirit in His people and they will live.

When my bones were dried up and my hope was gone, Jesus Christ put His Spirit in me, and I begin (for the first time) to truly live. That was many years ago and I’ve never been the same. The power of Pentecost (when Jesus put His Spirit in His first followers) has never left me and never died down within me. Now I’m over the wall for Jesus.

The big lie of organized Christianity is to make people believe that they are dry bones, and that God almost never speaks directly to an ordinary person’s heart. Because Christians have been trained to believe that God isn’t speaking personally to them, they rarely hear Him.

Churches make a big deal about the day of Pentecost but mostly ignore the message of Pentecost: God’s Spirit has come to make us live and to directly and personally lead us! Why Pentecost? The Holy Spirit didn’t come to be an occasional sermon topic. He came to directly rule and reign over all Christ-followers.

Churches aren’t supposed to program and control the Holy Spirit. When they do they create dry bones. The Spirit has come to personally take direct leadership and control of all Christian gatherings. If we aren’t willing to listen to God’s Spirit and let Him personally lead and direct us when we gather in His name, hearing a talk about Pentecost is meaningless. Every church that says it belongs to God needs to let the Holy Spirit take direct control of all that goes on when it gathers and bring the dry bones to life!

To turn a church gathering over to the Holy Spirit’s control so the dry bones can live: 1) Ask the Holy Spirit to speak. 2) Everybody wait and listen. 3) Let people share what the Spirit tells them. 4) Do what the Spirit says.

Pentecost announced Holy-Spirit-given dreams, visions, and prophesying (Acts 2:17). Today we have too often replaced the Spirit’s dreams with human schemes, the Spirit’s visions with human decisions, and Spirit-given prophesying with human classifying.

The Holy Spirit came to stay, not to go away and come back for a short visit on Pentecost Sunday. If you don’t want the Holy Spirit to take direct control of your life and your church, then you don’t really want the Spirit. Pentecost was extremely disruptive. That’s why churches today would rather present a sermon about it than to open their doors and experience it in Spirit-led action.

The Spirit came at Pentecost and began to enable ordinary Christians to speak in languages that they didn’t know. Today on Pentecost Sunday ordinary Christians are made to be spectators while one man talks to them about things they already know. Pentecost was extremely disruptive. That’s why churches today would rather present a sermon about it than to open their doors and experience it in Spirit-led action.

Pentecost empowers us to know what is beyond knowledge. Christians need to be continually strengthened with supernatural power through God’s Spirit living and working inside their inner being so that the risen Christ may dwell in their heart through faith (through their moment-by-moment full reliance and dependence on Him) and so that they can personally, directly, and intimately know the humanly unknowable–Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge. This miraculous revelation and wonder working power is needed for Christians “throughout all generations.” It wasn’t just for the believers who experienced Acts chapter 2. (Inspired by Ephesians 3:14-21.)

There is so much confusion when it comes to God. People get their ideas about God from their upbringing, from pastors, from TV preachers, from religious radio and TV, and from books and social media. Often, they don’t ever check out what they have been taught with the Bible and by listening to the Holy Spirit speak directly to them. Confused people who are proudly and cantankerously convinced that they are correct have become the influencers and trend setters for our culture. In reality they are insecure. That’s why they pontificate so loudly and cruelly. Listen ever more closely to the Holy Spirit’s voice in your heart. Have mercy on the detractors and distractors. They are hurting and need your love.

Posted in Ezekiel, Pentecost, Pentecost Sunday, prophecy, prophesy | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Keep Stirring Up Pentecost’s Inner Fire!

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?
View all responses

I never want cold weather to conquer my heart. I keep stirring up Pentecost’s inner fire and passionate, warm-hearted desire for inner peace and joy.

Jesus said that having the Holy Spirit freely living inside of you is like having rivers of living water flowing from within you. He wants the fruit of His Spirit to overflow from your innermost being as inner rivers that gush forth with the heart-felt warmth of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The power of the Spirit’s unhindered and unquenched presence in you, casts out the spiritual coldness of fear and timidity. “Christ in you,” freely flowing (without you hindering Him or holding Him back) as inner rivers, is the hope of “joy unspeakable and full of glory” and the power of “peace that passes understanding.”

You don’t need to mentally understand the great mystery of who the Spirit is and how He works inside of you. You need to go beyond human understanding and continually experience the awe of Christ’s glory by radically surrendering to and submitting to His inner presence and authority. Let the Spirit of Jesus have full access and total control within you. Let His inner rivers continually sweep aside everything inside you that tries to extinguish the presence of His inner fire.

Modern Christianity has far too many studies about the Holy Spirit and drastically too few glorious demonstrations of the presence and reality of the Sprit at work in ordinary Christ-followers. We have accepted “eloquence and human wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:1) as a substitute for “a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). It’s urgent that contemporary Christians begin “to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you,” (2 Timothy 1:6). This can help: Search for The Joy of Early Christianity.

When you’re running from the God of limitless presence, there’s nowhere to hide. Trying to avoid accountability to the God of unlimited knowledge is a waste of time. Watching white water run in a river reminds me of all of this. Here’s a poem I wrote about it:

Watching white water
Flowing by
Somehow calms
My question why
And connects me with
An inner flow 
That makes me know 
Love and peace
And suddenly 
My problems cease
To be a burden.
Posted in another Pentecost, Pentecost, Pentecost Sunday, Pentecostalism | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Key to a Balanced Life

Posted on May 17, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
How do you balance work and home life?
View all responses

The human mind and heart can easily and quickly get out of balance and tumble into discouragement and depression. I’d like to recommend the way I’ve been able to balance my life to you. I convinced that it will work if you will consistently follow it.

Set up your mind and your heart to live a life that stays always logged on to Jesus and ever obedient to His promptings and notifications. Keep Him constantly pulled up on your inner screen.

The Christian mindset is to have your heart firmly set on hearing and obeying the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. It is to do what God requires instead of pursuing your own desires. God wants to put His laws on your heart and write them on your mind. (See Hebrews 10:16.) He wants you to set your own preferences aside so that you can abide in His will and not quench the Spirit.

Jesus put it this way: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. (Matthew 16:14.) You can’t follow your own desires and God’s desires at the same time. Decide to let God’s Spirit be your moment-by-moment inner guide by following His promptings stride by stride. May your choice always be to obey the Spirit’s still small voice and to promptly and faithfully do what “Christ in you” tells you to regardless of the consequences.

Many Christians today are listening to religious podcasts. O that more would listen intently to God-casts in their heart! The blood that flowed from Christ’s wounds made the way for the rivers of His Spirit to joyously flow from within you. Open up to the risen Jesus and live your daily life by Christ’s inner flow. To be led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14) Christians must be aware of and obey the Spirit’s inner promptings.

An uprooted tree
Isn’t what it should be.
Instead of standing tall
It had a great fall.
Same with you and me.
Any society
That teaches people
To uproot their conscience
And replace it with nonsense
Will have a great fall
Into an absence
Of common sense
And lose the wealth
Of mental health.

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Posted in Christian experience, Christian recovery, peace of mind, renewing your mind | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Didn’t Do It My Way

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What sacrifices have you made in life?
View all responses

I am strong willed. I want to do things my way. I also have always had a stubborn conscience that has frequently contended with my will. When my will and my conscience have conflicted, I have strived to overcome the way of my will and obey the will of my conscience. Like any human being, I haven’t always succeeded, and my will has overcome my conscience (sometimes frequently), but never without a fight.

When I did violate my conscience, I sacrificed the comfort of lying to myself and saying that my rebellious thoughts, words, and deeds were good things. I admitted to myself and to other people that I was doing wrong and accepted the guilt that came with it. Then one day I found forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and I sacrificed my will to follow Him. I began to frequently pray a very frightening prayer: “Jesus, do whatever you need to do to me to be able to do what you want to do through me.”

He has answered that prayer. Jesus has miraculously let many doors close in my life that I have greatly wanted to go through. That has left me broken, disappointed, and humbled. In my brokenness I have cried out desperately for His presence, His comfort, and His inner healing. Christ has responded in such a way as to fil me with “peace that passes understanding” and “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Now when I look back at the closed doors in my life, I am greatly grateful to Jesus because had those doors not been closed, I would have missed out on the beautiful intimacy with Christ that they drove me to and on the many incredible alternative blessings that came my way.

Through all the sacrifices, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus and He has never let me down. I woke up this morning with this short poem forming in my heart. It tells my story.

When a human heart
Is kept in tune with Christ
Life is a symphony
Of inner harmony
And never-ending hope.

After writing this post, my wife and I took communion together. As we did, I felt prompted to break the small wafer before I ate it. I felt like the Lord was telling me that to truly take the Lord’s Supper is to be so personally aware of the brokenness of Christ on the Cross that I can receive and embrace His brokenness with my own brokenness.

Immediately after eating the wafer and drinking the juice, I looked up and saw a big redheaded woodpecker pecking near the top of a four-story-tall dead tree trunk. It seemed like a sign. Its head covered with red reminded me that I need to have my mind continually renewed by the blood of Jesus. I need Christ’s perspective so I can die to my own desires, opinions, and perspective.

When I embrace the brokenness in my life and persistently knock on Heaven’s door like the woodpecker, the dead wood of the Cross sustains and shelters me. It’s not just a religious symbol. It’s a demonstration of Christ’s willingness to be meek and lowly in heart so that He can carry my brokenness. When I let His Cross connect with the brokenness in my heart I experience the miraculous power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death.” (Philippians 3:10.) Then His life (“Christ in you, the hope of glory,”) surges through me like rivers of living water!

Posted in free will, self-surrender, spiritual awakening, surrender to God | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Wear Depth of Insight From Many Years Ago

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
View all responses

Depth of insight looks for more than rational analysis and intellectual comprehension. It looks beyond the collecting, processing, and categorizing of information. It sees and experiences life directly with and through the heart.

Depth of insight is never satisfied with mere information about God. It hungers and thirsts for direct, ongoing, and heart-to-heart interaction with Him.

Insight is revelational and experiential. It isn’t analytical. It consists of flashes of awareness that burst on the consciousness and take it over with a fresh, life-altering, and unending way of seeing. Knowledge can come by study and human effort, but depth of insight must come directly from the living God. “This was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in Heaven.”

Depth of insight caused Isaiah to say: “I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips.” It caused Paul to say, “O wretched man that I am.” It caused Peter to say: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It has caused untold multitudes of Christ-followers throughout the centuries to joyfully surrender their all to the risen Jesus even unto death.

Unity in the body of Christ comes from depth of insight, not from theological analysis, doctrinal agreement, organizational systems, or religious programming. When two or more Christ-followers are undone in the presence of the Lord together, when their will, their desires, their pride, and their opinions are melted away by the radiant love and overwhelming presence of Jesus, they are one in the Spirit and connected heart to heart to the risen Jesus Christ and to each other.

Depth of insight is the norm for Christianity. It should have never been confined to rare occurrences and once-in-a-life-time-experiences. We can live in moment-by-moment revelation from God. In fact, we are called to that. That’s why we have been given the gifts of the Spirit. That’s why Christ lives in us. That’s why we have the day-by-day hope of glory! That’s why Jesus said: “I am with you always.” Step into the depth of insight. “Behold the Lamb of God,” throughout each day, all day long.

“Look unto Jesus the author and finisher of your faith.” Don’t just be content to study and analyze Him and to listen to sermons about Him. “Come boldly before the throne of grace,” and surrender your all to Him. Every time you stray from the conscious awareness of His presence, immediately refocus your heart on His living presence with reckless abandonment to His sovereignty and Lordship over your whole life.

Replace your play list with Jesus. Listen to Him day and night. “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” –Philippians 1:9. 

I want to
Bow my knees 
And be moved
By God's Spirit 
The way that trees 
Bend and move 
With the breeze.
Posted in insight, revelation, spiritual insight | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

I’m Being Led to be a Follower

Posted on May 14, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Are you a leader or a follower?
View all responses

I’m a low-keyed leader. I try to lead from the side, not from the front. I try to lead by being an equal with everyone. I feel no need to pull rank, use human authority, or strong arm anyone. I believe that God’s Spirit leads me to lead by being a radical follower of the risen Jesus and seeking to demonstrate His love, truth, and presence through my life.

The Holy Spirit wants to develop all Christ-followers to be mature servant/leaders. When the body of Christ is mature every member does the work of the ministry in love and unity under the Headship of Jesus as each person is prompted by the Holy Spirit. A plurality of mature believers trains all the members of the body to listen to and obey God’s Spirit. They humbly oversee and lovingly monitor assemblies of the saints so they can gently redirect any member who speaks or acts contrary to the Spirit.

Then the body of Christ can build itself up in love, unity, and “the knowledge of the Son of God” as “each part (member) does its work” so the whole body can grow under the direct and literal Headship and control of the living, resurrected Jesus Christ and demonstrate to one another and to the world “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” God has provided gifts so that all the members of the body of Christ can be trained to do the ministry and fulfill the 50+ New Testament “one another commands” as they are prompted by the Headship of Jesus leading through the Holy Spirit.

O for the day when contemporary Christians “will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” O that the body of Christ in our time would grow into such maturity that every believer would be trained, encouraged, empowered, and allowed to speak the truth in love as led by the Spirit when we gather in Christ’s name.

We live in the daze of deception. Personal feelings and desires have trumped discernment and trampled truth. How we need to listen to, obey, and follow the direct, personal leadership of the risen Jesus. Open the floodgates of your heart and let the cleansing river of God’s Spirit freely flow from within you.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Posted in Christian leadership, leadership training, leading of the Spirit, servant leadership | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Source of my 5 Favorite Fruits

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
List your top 5 favorite fruits.
View all responses

My five favorite fruits are: love, joy, peace, kindness, and self-control. The source that causes those fruits to grow, ripen, and flourish in a human being is the Spirit of the living God. The Bible calls them “the fruit of the Spirit.” There are four more: patience, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness.

Why don’t we live in a world full of those fruits? It is because that sin has severed people’s connection with the Spirit of the loving, holy God and turned humans into dead men walking–empty shells who reject God’s way, abandon the truth, and are lifeless inside. God longs for all people to come to life in His presence and to experience the beauty of His reality and the fruit of His Spirit, day and night.

Because of His great love and grace for people, God who raised Jesus from the dead shines His resurrection power into the death cold hardness of the human heart. He calls and knocks to enter in and as many as receive Him and follow His Spirit become life-filled children of God. They live by the faith of the Son of God as the risen Jesus lives in and through them and seats them in the supernatural dimensions of the heavenly realms so they can be living demonstrations of His grace and kindness on earth as it is in Heaven, not in theological theory but in day-to-day reality.

Born again Christ-followers have been rescued from spiritual death so they can continually surrender the control of their mind, will, desires, and emotions to the risen Lord Jesus Christ and manifest His presence and the fruit of His Spirit on earth as people who are seated in Heaven. The world desperately needs all born again Christ-followers to courageously, boldly, lovingly, and humbly shine His light by submitting to and obeying the inner promptings of His Spirit.

Photo by Denise H. on Pexels.com
Posted in Christian spirituality, fruit of the Spirit, spiritual fruit, spirituality | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Religious Boxes and Dry Pipes

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Steve Simms

Jesus is more real than the device you’re reading this on. What you are now seeing on this screen will soon be gone but Jesus will never pass away. Download Christ’s operating system into your heart and let Him provide the programming that runs within you day and night.

The Sunday morning religious box tries to contain Jesus under its control. Worship, listen to, and obey the risen Jesus outside of the Sunday morning religious box.

True Christianity is intuitional not institutional. It’s built on direct personal revelation from the living God, not on human organization. Let the risen Jesus out of the religious box and you’ll be amazed at what He does in and through you.

Religious people had Jesus killed. They didn’t want divine revelation or heart-to-heart relationship with God. They just wanted to protect and preserve their rituals.

Christianity has built religious organizations called churches, but they are too often dry like this pipe and Christ’s living water has to find a way to flow outside of their control like the water flowing beneath the pipe.

Keeping Jesus
In a church box
Too often blocks
Him from real life.

Jesus wants to
Live and reside
And work inside
Of your heart, 
Not be stuffed inside
A Sunday church box.
Posted in a new reformation, church reform, reformation, spiritual awakening | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Open Up to Agape

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
View all responses

Every day
I can open up
To agape.

When Christ came to pay
The price for my sin,
That was agape.

When Jesus calls me
To follow and obey
Him throughout the day,
That is agape.

Every time I pray
And God fills me
With His joy,
That’s agape.

When Jesus molds me
Like a potter
Working with his clay,
That is agape.

Every time I see
An inner ray
Of God’s bright light,
That’s agape.

Every time Christ calls me
To come back to Him
When I stray away,
That is agape.

I long to be able
To constantly convey
To hurting people
The love called agape!

If your skies are gray
And you feel dismay
Open your heart
To God’s agape.

Posted in agape, Crazy Love, self-help, self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Invisible Man Who Changed My Life

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
View all responses

I didn’t see him with my eyes, but although he was invisible to me, he changed my life. In an instant everything shifted within me and my whole life seemed different. I’ve never been the same since the moment I first encountered his presence. I’ve spent the rest of my life seeking to align my mind to the mind of Christ.

Ever since then I have wanted to capitalize the pronouns that I use to refer to Him because I believe that although He is fully human, He is more than a man. I believe that Jesus Christ is also fully God and that He is present and active in human beings today through the Holy Spirit. I know that because He is always working inside of me, and because I frequently see Him working in and through other people.

The Bible says: “We have the mind of Christ.” When Christ-followers literally align their mind with Christ’s, they begin to spontaneously overflow with His thoughts and insights.

To align your mind with Christ requires childlike trust and innocent spontaneity. Then you can learn to freely flow with His Spirit as He actively lives and works within you to continually lead and direct you to His “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

Renew your mind by aligning it with Christ’s throughout each day. Then the fruit of His Spirit will ever flow through your consciousness, and He will empower you to show His presence and reality to those around you as you supernaturally demonstrate His words that are called the “Beatitudes.” (Run a quick search for them.)

When Christ-followers are encouraged to freely flow with and obey God’s Spirit, Jesus builds His ekklesia for all to see! Then Christ shines through His followers like the sun.

Posted in Beatitudes, Christ in you, Sermon on the Mount, spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment