I love to express what I feel called to say. Writing helps me to open up my heart and do that. I hope that what I write helps you in some way. I hope it makes you think, encourages you, or inspires you. If it challenges you or if you disagree, I hope you know that I respect your right to have a different point of view.
“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.” – Alexander The Great
I am a sheep in the army of the Lord, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. I’m fighting with the weapons of His presence, His love, and His power. Jesus said: “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
I listen to my invisible Shepherd and strive to do what He says. Here are some thoughts He is putting in my heart and prompting me to post:
Oratory Is Not the Answer, Jesus Is!
How many talks does it take to make a Christian’s heart continually overflow with passionate love for the risen Jesus?
How many religious keynote addresses are the key to Christians living in supernatural victory?
How many lectures do we need to listen to before we begin to daily celebrate and obey Jesus?
How many sermons should we hear to cause us to become radical Christ-followers?
How many discourses need to be delivered until we demonstrate “Christ in you, the hope of glory?”
How many speeches are required to make believers “doers of the word and not hearers only?“
Christians should gather As a heavenly colony, Overflowing with joy, Not meet in monotony.
There’s nothing monotonous about following the risen Jesus. If you’re bored, you’re off track.Let Jesus light up your heart, not just for a moment now and then, but day and night!
A great human problem is our false belief that we don’t need help to solve our problems. If you want to feel better fix the focus of your attention on the risen Jesus Christ. Jesus has promised to be with His followers always, not just in special moments, but everywhere all the time. Keep His presence as your center of attention!
‘Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dear Steve:
After 100 years keep hope going. Make some of your best memories happen today. Start an inspiring project that will take a while.
Every moment of life is an opportunity to gain wisdom and to appreciate each breath. Allow no time for monotony. You’ve got work to do, songs to sing, people to encourage, and life to enjoy. Now get to it!
You haven’t lost your prime; you’ve been given the gift of more time. Keep allowing the living Jesus to sound His beautiful chimes in your heart. Christ in you is the hope of glory. Keep celebrating His presence and telling His story until you go out in a blaze of His glory and then enjoy His presence forever and ever. Amen!
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” –2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
“Work as if you were going to live a (another) hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.” –Benjamin Franklin
An ancient writer invited his readers to an amazing shopping spree. He said: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”
That ancient writer’s name is Isaiah. He added: “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.”
There’s a longing in your heart that nothing you ever buy with money can satisfy. No shopping spree that isn’t free can give you inner victory. Looking into the future, Isaiah saw a Savior who would give His life as the price to ransom you. “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
The Best Shopping Spree
Awaken to joy. Train yourself to be Spiritually fed And directly led By Christ as your Head. Like the Bible said: "Awake, O sleeper, Rise up from the dead And Christ will give you light."
My birth certificate reads “Charles Steven Simms,” but I’ve always gone by Steve. When I first began to read the Bible, I came across a guy named Stephen. He was an early Christ-followers and was one of seven people appointed by the apostles to “wait on tables” and to distribute food to widows so that the apostles could give their “attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
Stephen, however, didn’t follow the religious program. Instead of waiting tables, he began to tell people about Jesus and he “performed great wonders and signs among the people.” “Opposition arose . . . who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.”
Then those who were against Stephen arrested him and brought him before a religious council. So, Stephen courageously preached to them and what he said takes up the long chapter of Acts chapter 7. He boldly told them, “You have received the law that was given through angels but you have not obeyed it.” When the members of the religious council heard that, they were furious and murdered Stephen by stoning him to death.
As the stones were crushing his body, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” A young man named Saul “approved of their killing him” and watched out for their coats as they stoned Stephen. That young man later encountered the risen Jesus and became Paul who started numerous Christ-led communities around the Roman Empire and wrote a fourth of the New Testament part of the Bible.
Stephen didn’t roll with his assigned religious role of serving tables. Instead, he obeyed God’s Spirit. Even his enemies said that “his face was like the face of an angel.” His example of obedience and sacrifice has inspired multitudes of people throughout the centuries to obey God rather than man, to follow the living Jesus instead of religious ritual and formalism.
Stephen has inspired me to step beyond spectator religion, to set aside its assigned roles and expectations, and to obey the Holy Spirit instead. That hasn’t made me popular, but it has led me to multitudes of amazing experiences with the living Jesus.
Below is a picture of my seminary degree and ordination certificate that tried to confine me to a religious role. For years I tried hard to fit in and to serve their tables, but opposition always arose. The Holy Spirit always led me to turn the tables and to follow Him instead. Inspite of the cost there’s nothing like daily listening to Jesus and doing what He tells you to.
I’m still proclaiming outside of the religious box: Open Your Blinds To Let God’s Light In!
To truly grow Let God show You where to go. Learn to flow With His Spirit. Read His word And hear it With your heart. Step beyond What you know. So God can sow His seeds in you.
Adam and Eve Chose to blame. What they needed Was forgiveness. It’s dangerous To do the same. Lord, have mercy On me.
The Miracle Flow– I love to speak And experience A miracle flow Of words I don’t know That makes me aware Of God and His care So that I can see Christ working in me.
I’ve observed that Christians tend to be mostly disinterested in personal and spiritual growth, unless they open their heart to the risen Jesus and let Him make them hungry for righteousness. Humans are born with an God-given guide to happiness and inner peace. It’s called your conscience, but our tendency is to ignore it and to resist it.
Money can put you in a big mansion and in a fancy car, but it can’t buy you a beautiful relationship or a clear conscience.The true measure of success is a person’s level of integrity, kindness, compassion, joy, inner peace, and self-control, not $$$!
The last thing I learned I learned the first thing this morning before I got out of bed. I woke up with this paragraph developing in my heart. No matter what I dream I wake up in school.
“When I read Matthew chapter 16, I hear Jesus saying that He wants to build His followers into the body of Christ — Spirit-led community gatherings of Christ-hearers who are personally experiencing and sharing the rock of direct revelation from God the Father, with one another.”
The body of Christ is called to be community. Community is people who are connected heart to heart. A group of people that meets without heart interaction isn’t a community.
The more heart interaction you individually have with the risen Jesus the more you will be able to experience genuine community with other people. First cultivate an ever-growing relationship with the living Jesus, then beautiful relationships with other people will spontaneously flow from that.
An audience is a gathering of spectators. A community is openhearted people who interact with and care for one another. Without heart-to-heart Spirit-led community interaction, Christianity tends to become a religious lecture series. When individuals are prompted and led by God’s Spirit, community breaks out in their midst. Begin by showing Christ’s love to the people He puts in front of you.
God didn’t create you to be lost in the crowd. He made you a unique individual so that your life can brightly shine with His creativity.You’re not a clone or a faceless cog in the mass of humanity. There’s never been another person like you!
God wants you to be more than a spectator at religious events. He wants you to be a bright light who demonstrates His presence for all to see. My life has been hopping with supernatural inner joy and Spirit-led interactive community ever since I began to listen to and walk along with the risen Jesus!
I don’t like to be asked to do wrong. It’s no fun to be tempted when I have set my heart to do what’s right no matter the cost.
I need to think About my need To be set free From the things That bind me. I need to Lift my eyes So I can rise To the Wise And not disguise With many lies Whatever tries To trap me In what defies My conscience.
Humans think And stray And run away From God. We don’t want To let Him Have His way. We don’t want To do what He has to say. We don’t want To open wide Our heart To pray. We resist God Day by day. We’re lost In the fray Of seeking Our own way. Yet Christ came And died And now lives So we may Be restored To God. Will we?
To think And sink And link With sin Is to be Out of sync With God.
“I think, therefore I am.” No one can truly see The thinking part of me Who’s more than my body And will always be For eternity. I’m intricately designed But my thinking’s unaligned With the perfect One Who created me. Thus He became a man So I can understand And be realigned. Then my rebellious heart Will no longer stay apart From His Presence, Love and mercy. Think about these things. Open wide your heart To the King of Kings!
“I think, therefore, I am.” I truly repent, therefore, I’m forgiven. It’s easy to refuse to think about God and to refuse to repent.
True repentance leads to peace with God and with people. Self-justification leads to pride, rebellion, hostility, and even to violence.
Trying to resist and overcome the discouragement, depression, and defeat of failure has made me aware of my great need for mental boundaries. It has caused me to train myself to reign in my runaway mind when it panicky gallops in my skull.
Thought boundaries are borders to protect your mind from intruding thoughts. Fix your inner border! People who have open boundaries in their mind are overrun by chaotic thoughts. Without thought boundaries your brain will be bombarded by bullying beliefs, worries, fears, and obsessions. For peace of mind let your conscience help you set and enforce thought boundaries.
A lack of thought boundaries is terrible because it lets your mental health waste away day-by-day.Without thought boundaries people become controlled by dominating desires, whacky whims, freaky feelings, and obsessive opinions.
A mind with no boundaries will always be unhealthy. Without thought boundaries mental health is a myth. Thought boundaries tell your mind where you will and where you won’t allow it to go.
Our thought boundaries (or the lack thereof) determine what we will and won’t allow in our mind.Before you welcome and embrace a thought make it go through customs first. It may be bringing harmful ideas into your mind.
Let your conscience define your boundaries. Then keep guilt-producing thoughts and behaviors out of your life. Thought boundaries help protect your inner core and keep you from falsely identifying yourself by your desires, feelings, and opinions. It takes courage to set and maintain mental boundaries.
Enforcing thought boundaries in your mind is an effective way to protect yourself from mental torment. Hang this sign in your brain: “No Conscience Violating Thoughts Allowed!” Then actively patrol your mental borders to enforce it. Train your mind to respect and abide by the boundaries your conscience sets for it.
You’re not required to let every thought that comes your way into your mind. Wisdom and discernment empower you to pick and choose. Thought boundaries are obstacles to tormenting thoughts. For peace of mind keep your thought boundaries strong!
The thoughts that you allow into your mind will shape your life. Be wise in which ones you welcome and which ones you reject.Train your mind to say no to and to resist unwholesome, manipulating, and tormenting thoughts.
The best thought boundaries “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” They “set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.” Mind boundaries help you to guard your heart. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” –King Solomon
The risen Jesus is “the bread of life,” “the living bread” that “anyone may eat.” He has restored access to the tree of life. “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” I love to feast on His presence 24/7/365! Let Him set your thought boundaries.
The peace of mankind Requires peace of mind. Obeying Jesus Is the way to find Lasting peace of mind.
“It’s not about me.” My autobiography isn’t about me because my life is amazing when my focus isn’t on me.
I’m just a spectator watching an invisible being working in and through me. His name is Jesus and I’m writing my autobiography that features what Christ is doing in and around me almost every time I blog. Here’s the latest edition of “It’s Not About Me.”
I felt prompted by Jesus to learn Spanish in January of 2023 and began everyday watching videos in Spanish, reading a Spanish New Testament, and using Duolingo. Around August a Spanish speaking couple (Deysi and Ivan) moved next door to my wife and me. They have been so patient to let me practice on them. We have connected heart-to-heart and above all, they deeply love Jesus. Gloria a Dios!
Yesterday, Deysi, who knows very few words in English, told me about her nephew William. He was raised in a Christian environment but in college he decided to be an atheist. Recently he had an encounter with Jesucristo and now he loves God with all his heart. He’s reading the Bible every day and telling everyone He knows about Jesus. He says that faith isn’t about religion but about loving Jesus and other people.
Routine religion Needs an audience, But God wants you Filled with His Presence And doing what He Tells you to do. Go beyond routine Into things unseen.
If churches would present Christ in an exciting way that allows Him to manifest and demonstrate His presence, the living Jesus would be as followed and as talked about as the Chosen series. Routine religion doesn’t rigorously resonate in human hearts, but the resurrected Jesus does! It’s time for Christians to focus on the risen Jesus Himself, not on sermons or shows about Him.
The common definition of the word object is “a material thing that can be seen or touched.” However, there is another definition of object as well: ‘a person or thing to which a specified action or feeling is directed, as in ‘the object of investigation.'” I’m using the second definition.
The object of my life’s investigation involves three mysterious and invisible people who I can’t live without. They are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Of all the choices available to me I choose to seek to make those mysterious Three In One, The Creator Of The Universe, the source of my choices.
People have the choice of choices. Throughout each day we can choose what we want, or we can choose what God wants for us. However, most of the time most of our choices are based on choosing what we want.
Rather than choosing to be guided by the promptings of God’s Spirit within us (the leading of His still small voice in our conscience), we become dead to hearing from God. Instead of being led by His presence we choose to be led by our own desires, feelings, and opinions.
As human beings we become captivated to choosing the cravings of our human nature. Rather than choosing to always align with the life of God at work within us, we attempt self-justify our self-focused choices by our analysis and rationalizations of the knowledge of good and evil.
I can’t live without the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They literally keep me alive. When I choose to be separated from them, even for an instant, I walk away from the tree of life and flirt with death. I long for the day when I only choose to do the will of The Three In One no matter what the circumstances. My only hope for that day is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
(I woke up this morning with the paragraph that follows this paragraph forming in my heart. I posted it on my Facebook page before I saw today’s writing prompt. It answers today’s question, “What experiences in life helped you grow the most?” My answer begins with this: The many times that I have gathered with members of the body of Christ being assembled and led by God’s Spirit where the risen Jesus is the literal Head of His assembled body not just a figurehead, have helped me grow the most. When a group of people is led by the presence of the living Jesus, He supernaturally empowers them to go beyond routine religion and to surrender control to His Spirit without human organization or manipulation.)
“When Christ, the Son of the living God, is living inside you by His Spirit, He wants to build you together as living stones with other Christ-carriers on the foundational rock of personal, supernatural revelation (not on the shifting sand of human organization and control), so He can be the literal Head, King, and Lord and personally direct, prompt, and lead His followers, building them into Spirit-led gatherings of the members of His body who manifest and demonstrate His presence and reality. To learn how this can begin to happen in a small group (or church) you attend, google: Beyond Church Ekklesia.”
Christians are supposed to do the 50+ “one another commands” in the New Testament with each other. They’re never commanded to sit and expect a pastor to minister to them. Often going to a bar is a desperate attempt to find the heart-to-heart connection that people are often blocked and barred from by the rigid routine of religion.
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 