I hosted a testimony party on Zoom.

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What was the last thing you did for play or fun?
View all responses

Good news? Yes! Christianity today needs Good News About Jesus Testimony Parties!

The daily, ongoing good news about Jesus is too often silenced. Even in countries where Christians are free to testify about what Jesus is now doing in and through them, Christ-followers have been trained to listen to lectures about Jesus, but not trained to show and tell everywhere what Jesus is doing and has done in their heart and life.

Jesus isn’t just good news! He is today’s news, breaking news, current news, ongoing news! Jesus is news now because He is always living, present, and working in the world. However, today’s news about Jesus is frequently ignored and even censored by our fear of being transparent.

The earliest Christians boldly broadcast current news about Jesus everywhere they went. (See Revelation 12:11.) They testified not only about what Jesus had done during His physical lifetime, death, and resurrection. They also testified about what the risen, present Jesus was doing right now in and through their life.

Let me zoom into the present. Two days ago, I hosted what I called a “Christmas Jesus Testimony Party” on Zoom and invited many of my Facebook friends. I asked if people would share a testimony about how Jesus has worked or is working in their lives. Wow! We all heard some amazingly good news!

We heard the good news about how six months ago one man’s hard heart was suddenly filled with compassion when Jesus became real to him. Both he and his wife said that he is no longer the same man.

We heard the good news how a woman who has struggled with mental health issues opened her life to Jesus and began to write about her experiences with Him and come out of her shell.

We were told the good news about a young man who thought that church attendance made him a Christian, until one Sunday morning Jesus spoke these words in his heart: “If you were born a Hindu, what would you be today?” He answered that he would have been a Hindu. Immediately, Jesus responded by asking him: “Why do you think you’re a Christian?” Suddenly he realized that he wasn’t a Christian at all but only a church attendee. He asked God to show him the truth and two years later he had a life-changing encounter with Jesus.

We heard the good news about a man who was raised in a Hindu family but struggled with hopelessness until he met a group of Christ-followers who told him the good news about the living Jesus and demonstrated Christ’s presence to him by loving him unconditionally.

We received the good news about a woman who had experienced Jesus as a child but had strayed away and lived a double, compromised life for several years. Then Jesus did some amazing things to bring her to total commitment to him. As Jesus was turning her heart back to him, he spoke to her in a clear voice: “You’ll never know all that I have protected you from.” When she heard Christ’s voice she sobbed and sobbed and has passionately pursued His presence ever since.

We heard a man share how he grew up in church and learned a lot about Jesus but how it was mostly just religious information. However, little by little, as he read about Jesus and spent time with people who openly loved Jesus, he noticed that Jesus was making Himself more and more real to him.

We heard a woman tell how she longed to know Jesus better and went from denomination to denomination (joining churches and getting baptized by different ones) but was always wanting Jesus to be more real to her. Then she started hanging out with some Christ-followers who met in a small group and openly talked about how Jesus was working in their lives. Seeing the living Jesus in and through those people began to fill her with Christ’s presence and joy which radiated from her face as she talked about Him.

Have you been to a Good News About Jesus Testimony Party? I plan to host more of them on Zoom after Christmas. (Hope you can come.) You can also host your own. Simply get a few people together (in person or online) and create a kind friendly environment where they feel safe to open their heart. Then allow whoever wants to share the good news about how they have experienced Jesus. (It helps to set a timer and a time limit for each person so that no one person takes up other people’s time.)

Christianity is about having a close, day-by-day relationship with the risen Jesus Christ. You too can get to know the risen Jesus as your friend.

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Inspired by Isaiah 11:1-9

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Steve Simms

Remember the future
Comes day-by-day
Until one day
It doesn’t.
Refuse to delay
And stray away
From God’s hope
Into spiritual decay
And downhearted dismay.
Focus on what
The risen King Jesus
Has to say.
Daily follow and obey
His living Way
Of being always
Led by His Spirit.
Let His life sprout
And grow as a branch
Full of the Spirit’s fruit,
Rising from the wasteland
Within you,
Let the Spirit of Christ’s
Counsel and might
Ever empower you
And His presence
Make you new!

Refuse to breath the bad air
Of hopelessness and despair.
You were born to make
The world a better place,
Not to be flushed
Down the drain
By all the pain
In the world.

Let God rearrange
Your heart and mind
And make you
The healing change
That hurting people
Are desperate to find.

Insults and put downs
Don’t disappear
Without a trace.
They displace
Inner peace
And leave lasting pain
Every place
They go.
Only forgiveness
Can erase
Their ugly stain.

We should never talk about Jesus like He’s not in the room. Wherever we go, there He is!

Jesus loves me this I know for He daily tells me so (and the Bible does, too)! When Jesus calls you to do something, you don’t need the approval or support of a church. Just do what He says!

It’s time for all Christ-followers to be trailblazing pioneers who prepare the way of the Lord, day and night! The risen Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life all year long all the years of our life! Every act of kindness makes the world a better place.

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the man . . .

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
View all responses

A tortured man who had his back ripped to shreds and was repeatedly punched in the face was forced to wear a royal purple robe. Then he was brought in front of a crowd of angry people, with his bloody head wrapped in a thorn-filled vine. The governor said, “Behold the man,” and declared him not guilty. But the crowd disagreed and clamored for his execution. Reluctantly the governor went along with the crowd.

That humble, broken man, overflowing with love and mercy, changed my life even though he had been executed almost 2,000 years before my birth. How is that possible? I can’t explain it. All I know is that I heard a young man say that that man is alive today and tell how Jesus had changed his life. As the young man testified about Jesus (the Creator of the Universe in human flesh) something I don’t understand happened instantly inside my heart. I suddenly was aware of the presence of the resurrected Jesus Christ and He has been the most real person in my life ever since then.

Here’s an example of how Jesus continues to work in my life. I woke up very early this morning with this poem about Jesus being the Way, forming in my heart and mind. Later I went to a blog I read every morning, and the title of today’s post is The Way.

The way to make
The world a better place
Is to prepare the way
In your heart
For the Lord
To have more space
To do His will
In and through you.

The best ointment
To heal the pain of
Disappointment
Is a heart-to-heart
Appointment with God.
He always has
Time for you.
Spend your time
Always opening
Your heart to Him.

If you will replace
Hate with forgiveness,
The world will be
A better place
And much pain and heaviness
Will depart
From your heart.

I’m amazed how often God confirms things by putting them on the hearts of people who don’t even know each other. It’s time for all Christ-followers to be trailblazing pioneers and to prepare the way of the Lord! The risen Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life all year long all the years of our life!

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Look again at how you picture life

Posted on December 17, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
View all responses

Years ago, I pictured my life as being a Jesus Freak and giving my all to follow and obey Him. I can say that I’ve experienced far more of the miracles and joy of Jesus than I could have ever imagined. (Jesus is the ultimate life enhancer!) I hope younger people radically encounter and obey the living Jesus. I don’t want to be the last Jesus Freak.

Once there were millions of people so openly excited about Christ that they were called Jesus Freaks. You saw them everywhere: in stores, in parks, at sporting events, in colleges, on the streets, in high schools. Over the years their numbers have dwindled. Many were toned down by churches. Others turned away from Jesus. Some have already been promoted to glory. But there are still a few of us around praising and following Jesus everyday with all of our heart! O Lord, please renew our numbers in the generations behind us! Raise up millions of Christ-followers who will let the Holy Spirit empower them to get and keep the trash out of their heart and life.

Look again!

Do you recall
The most famous
Birth of all?
Jesus the living God
Was born in human flesh.
Now He reigns as Lord of all!
Hear and obey His call
Throughout the day.
You’ll no longer find Him
As a babe in a manger,
But if you’ll look
With the eyes of your heart,
You can see Him living and working
In someone you consider to be a stranger.
Let the people of God assemble heart-to-heart,
In the life-changing, radical love of Jesus
As His Spirit-led ekklesia,
Not in routine religion.

Break out of
Religious routine.
Look and experience
The unseen Jesus.
Taste and see
What can’t be seen
With the human eye.
Open your heart to receive,
And to ever perceive
The reality
Of the risen Christ.

If you’re not going
To daily walk the walk,
There’s no need
To hear a Sunday talk.

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Timing matters

Posted on December 16, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What skills or lessons have you learned recently?
View all responses

My time and the right time rarely match. I want to know and to have the things that I want, right now, not later. I don’t want to wait. But right now is not the right time for everything. Some things are better when they age. They are more fully appreciated when they require the patience of waiting and hoping and trusting through many delays.

I’ve worked for, waited for, and hoped for some things for many years. I still have unfilled dreams. I used to be disappointed by that fact, but now I’m learning to rejoice that I still have much to live for. Even if I don’t experience all I’ve longed for in my life, hoping keeps me looking forward with excitement, not looking back in discouragement or looking around in worry.

I’m learning to surrender my timing to God. I wrote this poem this very morning before I saw this writing prompt:

Chronos to Kiros

The Bible demonstrates
That abandoned dreams,
Disappointments left behind
In chronological time,
Are sometimes resurrected
When least expected
So they can be fulfilled
In God’s opportune time.
Let Joseph, Abraham,
Hannah, Esther, David,
Moses, Zechariah, and Ruth
Reveal this hope-filled truth
And encourage you.

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Why do Christians settle for spectatorship instead of discipleship?

Posted on December 15, 2023 by Steve Simms

Spectator religion
Over and done
In an hour or two,
So little to do.
Just sit on a chair
Or an antique pew
And let a preacher
Run it all for you.

I believe that Jesus wants to build a spiritual army that follows His Sprit and overflows with His presence, not an audience for a preacher’s sermons. Christianity needs more demonstrations of the presence, power, and character of the risen Jesus and less of the institutionalism that lulls us to sleep. (The body of Christ is supposed to make disciples, not onlookers, observers, viewers, watchers, admirers, attendees, audience members, bystanders, or showgoers.)

Christian spectators watch and watch Sunday after Sunday with nothing to do but pay the preacher and come back next Sunday to sit through another service that’s almost precisely the same. Church is too often an audience of spectators stuck in the same ‘ole same ‘ole. Perhaps we need a shake up so we can wake up!

Spectator religion needs a celebrity on a platform who will give people something to look at during church services. When professional preachers and professional worship leaders are paid to study and practice all week so they can produce a professional performance on Sunday mornings, everyday people are pushed into the position of being politely passive spectators. Perhaps it would be better if we turned our eyes upon Jesus.

The focus of Christianity shouldn’t be about being a member of a religious organization. It should be about being led by the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 8:14.) Church attendance is a poor substitute for discipleship.

Christians like to set up rules, structures, organizations, and human leaders because that’s easier than being led by the Spirit. Refuse to let the wide road of spectator religion keep you from the narrow road of being personally led by the risen Jesus as He speaks to you through His still, small voice in your conscience and in the Bible.

Disciples are dedicated and devoted to doing what the risen Jesus says. They are disciplined and determined to daily follow and obey His will, not their own. Disciples want to know Jesus better and better and to let Him daily transform them into His own image.

Disciples are not made by lectures, a curriculum, or a scripted program. They’re not satisfied to just hear religious talks. Disciples learn to be led by God’s Spirit as they day-by-day surrender to and obey the presence of Christ living and working inside their heart. They are trained, equipped, and empowered to let the risen Jesus live in and work through them throughout the day. Be one!

Audience Christianity ambles aimlessly about. Discipleship demonstrates the presence, power, and love of the living Jesus. Let’s avoid Christ-less Christianity! According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the world is filled with Christ-less Christianity. He said: “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” Preaching should invite people to become disciples of the living Jesus, not make them ever dependent on a preacher. Jesus said to go and make disciples, but church has gone and made spectators. (A spectator is not a disciple!)

To barricade your heart is to abandon discipleship! Discipleship chips away our human pride. That’s why it is so rare. A self-enclosed heart always resists Christian discipleship.

Church makes Sunday morning spectators, however, Jesus said to make disciples. It’s time to for Christ-followers to demonstrate the presence and reality of the risen Jesus, not just to listen to a preacher describe Him.

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I hope people say they see Jesus in me.

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.
View all responses

I hope and I pray that people see Christ living in and through me throughout each day. I do my best to make that happen by seeking to listen to and obey the risen Jesus with all my heart. I try to avoid the pitfalls of the Pharisees and the deconstructionists.

Christianity’s not all about the Bible, we also need the living Jesus. It’s also not about ignoring the Bible because reading the Bible with an open heart keeps us focused on the omnipresent Jesus.

I don’t want to be a Pharisee who makes the Bible a religious rule book to boast about, or a deconstructionist who picks the Bible apart. I seek to follow the risen Jesus and the Bible helps keep me on track.

Yesterday I got attacked by both sides. A fundamentalist kept insulting my belief that the risen Jesus can communicate with us and personally lead us throughout the day. Then a deconstructionist criticized me for focusing too much on the Bible. But I just kept reading the Bible and listening to Jesus! The Book (Christ in the Bible) and the brotherhood of believers (Christ in His gathered people) keep me focused on the present-day presence of the Beautiful One!

False prophets distract people from the presence of the risen Jesus and from the testimonies about Him in the Bible. They disagree with what the true prophets said about Jesus in the Bible. Have you heard directly from the risen Jesus lately? If not, why not?

Go and see the Prince of Peace for yourself. Even shepherds knew that it’s not enough to simply hear about Jesus. They went searching for Him until they found Him in the least likely place. After they experienced the presence of the living Jesus, they were overcome with joy and began to go and talk about Him everywhere. Their passionate, heart-felt words amazed people! Shouldn’t we act like the shepherds today and go and make disciples, instead of merely hearing a talk about Jesus and then going away and forgetting about what we heard?

When I read the Bible, it burns in my heart and makes me want to go and see and experience the things that the Lord has told me about in His Book. I’m not content to read about “peace on earth and good will to men.” I want to see Jesus brighten up my own heart. I want to be contagious with the light of God’s peace and good will and to spread it far and wide in this dark world.

Let’s do more than sing and hear talks about Jesus! Let’s get back to the heart of worship and bring Him more than a song. Try not to have a Christ-less life. Surrender your heart and future to the presence of the living Jesus! (And by the way, have yourself a holy, fired-up Christmas full of Pentecostal power.)

We live in a fallen world between light and darkness, between God’s living water and dry places. Look to hope not to despair. My picture illustrates this point.

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My first day to experience “ekklesia”

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
View all responses

One day I walked into a group of about 60 people who were sharing testimonies about how Jesus Christ had changed their life. I had been to church plenty of times, but I had never been to a meeting like that before. As they shared with humility, passion, and zeal something instantly happened inside of me and I’ve never been the same. I’ve been walking and talking with the risen Jesus Christ ever since!

Now I trumpet this thought: Spirit-prompted child-like innocence will break the hardened clay pots that surround our heart. Gather with a few Christ-followers and give it a try.

God’s unconventional strategy is hidden by our use of the word church and our neglect of the meaning of the New Testament Greek word that church replaced. Church means: A building where people gather for sermons and ceremonies, a religious organization, or the organization’s members that gather in the building.

The Greek word ekklesia, however, has a completely different meaning. It is the proper name of the participatory town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities where any citizen could share what was on his heart. That’s the unconventional strategy that Jesus revealed when He, referring to the rock of direct, personal revelation from God, said: “I will build My ekklesia.” Christ’s unconventional strategy is to invite people to gather in His presence and to say and do whatever He prompts them to as they are led by His Spirit (See Matthew 16, Romans 8:14 and 1 Corinthians 14:26.)

Watching the Light of Christ shinning in and through ordinary people will produce awe and wonder. It will transform even the gloom and doom of deep darkness into joy and delight. Gather with some Christ-followers as each person present listens to the living Jesus and then shares and does what Jesus tells them to. Let the risen Jesus reveal His passionate and caring zeal for you by opening your heart and blasting away the burdens that bar you from receiving His Light and rejoicing in His love.

The art of opening your heart and being vulnerable is more caught than taught. To pass it on to others we have to model it for them by embracing the courage and humility to honestly reveal our heart in front of them. Then we need to encourage them and to be kindly receptive as we humbly hear people when they dare to share from their heart.

Jesus isn’t a teaching or a slogan. He’s a real person. We need to show people how to interact with and obey the living Jesus, not just to listen to religious information about Him.

Jesus said that He will be present when we gather in His name. If we open our heart, He will make us aware of His presence and will lead us by His Spirit. When people are actively worshipping Jesus from their heart, I can see radiant beams shinning from their face. When they open their heart to God and to each other it makes them hungry to read, absorb, and live the Bible.

The risen supernatural Jesus is hard to explain with human logic. Perhaps you could ask Him your questions and listen to His still small voice in your heart. His supernatural presence isn’t imaginary or magic. He’s truly risen from the dead and is now omnipresent.

Some people say that they never see a miracle. Every day I experience more miracles than I can count!

Pharisees focus on
Religious information
And impressing people
With their rule keeping,
Rather than discipleship
And heart transformation.

Ignoring the
Supernatural mystery
Of Christianity
Is spiritual insanity.

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Cold hearts need to be warmed

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Steve Simms

God’s living word
Is a roaring fire
To ever ignite
And brightly blaze
In broken human hearts,
Not a religious talk
About doing right
Or a creed to recite
Once a week.

Always remember
To fan the embers
And feed the fire
So God’s flame
Can flourish
In your heart.

Studying about God
Without experiencing
Heart-felt revelation
Won’t remove
The contamination
Within you.

Read the Bible
And hear it
While being
Sensitive
To God’s Spirit.

The greatest wealth
Is mental health.
It can’t be bought
But must be sought,
Filtered, refined
And brought
Out of the mine
And messy mire
Of the mind.

Think, say, and do
What produces
Love, joy, and peace
Inside of you.

How about a warm fire for your cold heart? Let your conscience and the Bible keep you sane in this crazy world. Jesus offers sanity to humanity, but it’s not a popular offer. He is real, alive, and knowable. He’s not just a religious story to be told. Spontaneous, stress-free, Christ-inspired playfulness and innocent, child-like silliness are aids to sanity that humans too quickly abandon.

The body of Christ is shattered into pieces, thousands of independent religious organizations all calling themselves church while disagreeing with each other, but Jesus wants all His followers to see themselves as one body united and being led and directed by His Spirit. See John 17:20-23. When Christ-followers gather and let Jesus be the active, controlling Leader, Lord, and King of the assembly the kingdom of God is revealed.

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Something keeps me speaking

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
View all responses

I grew up very shy, uncomfortable interacting with people and afraid to speak in front of a group of people. I only had two friends in high school, a popular girl I had a crush on and dated quite a bit, but I was always nervous when I was around her and a guy who was frequently reaching out to me and inviting me to hang out with him. One of my classes required us to make a speech every six weeks and that was terrifying and tormenting.

Then in my freshman year of college I attended a Spirit-led Christian group on campus, and something immediately changed inside of me. I suddenly saw the 60 or so people present as welcoming, not threatening. From that moment on they were close friends and because of Jesus Christ we opened our hearts to each other.

The incredible change in my heart and life became a fire inside of me that made me want to tell other people about Jesus. I still felt afraid, but Christ in me gave me the courage to speak up and talk about Him on campus and in churches. I became very comfortable speaking to groups of people and even went to seminary and became a preacher. I loved preaching and feeling the presence of Jesus flowing from my heart to a group of people, but I was discouraged that few people opened their heart back to me. I eventually stepped aside from the religious pulpit and became a full-time motivational speaker for 12 years, until voice problems caused me to quit.

But even with a quirky sounding voice, the fire in me kept me speaking. I began to blog about Jesus and post about Him on social media. I wrote several books based on spiritual insights. I went to inner city neighborhoods and shared Jesus with discouraged people on the streets. Then as a result of something my wife did, I was hired to be the chaplain at a Salvation Army men’s rehab. There I gave speeches 5 times a week (with my quirky voice) and continually counseled men individually.

I discovered that I was deeply touched by hearing the men’s stories of brokenness and despair and I loved to see how my heart-felt listening could soothe and even heal their pain. After 5 1/2 years as the chaplain, The Salvation Army asked my wife and me if we would like to start a non-traditional church with them.

We jumped at the idea. For the next ten years we had sermon-free church. We would worship by inviting people to passionately sing to Jesus and then we would open the meeting for anyone present to speak as they felt-prompted by the Holy Spirit. Ordinary people made short heart-felt speeches about Jesus. They prayed out loud. They read Bible verses to the group. They encouraged one another. They celebrated joys and comforted each other’s pain. They were eloquent!

This was not the way Salvation Army churches functioned, but they allowed us to do this for 10 amazing years. Eventually a leader was sent to oversee their work in Nashville, and he disapproved of the way we did church and made us stop. My wife and I had no alternative but to leave and to continue to proclaim Jesus and to empower and release other people to do so.

Most of my “speaking” is now online. I have a series of videos on YouTube, but mostly I write. I wake up early every morning with fresh thoughts about Jesus in my mind, post them on Facebook and turn them into a blog. I can’t stop speaking about the glorious wonders of the living, resurrected Jesus Christ.

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