Can hope be lifted high in this hurting world?

Posted on November 25, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Name your top three pet peeves.
View all responses
  1. Christianity presented without Christ-focused, heart-felt hope and encouragement.
  2. Church services that don’t allow the people present to publicly share their hope and faith in the living, resurrected Jesus.
  3. Christianity without open-hearted, caring and compassionate community.

When a church
Becomes ekklesia
People will see a
Real change.
Church will begin
To be a
Spirit-led
Heart-felt
Community.
When the premium fuel
Of God’s Spirit
Fills a local gathering
Of the body of Christ
With His Presence
We will be a
Shining Light
As Jesus builds
His ekklesia!

Here’s the biblical key to ekklesia: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” When the body of Christ gathers, all present need to be allowed to speak the word of God boldly, not just a preacher. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!”

Let the people of God raise “their voices together in prayer to God,” not just silently listen to a preacher pray! Let’s make church ekklesia again so that everyone present can pray out loud and share the hope that the Spirit puts on their heart!

God’s Spirit only exalts one person–the living, resurrected Jesus Christ. If anyone else is being exalted, that’s not the Spirit.

You don’t need to go to a special place to worship Jesus with other people. Wherever you are, there He is! Christians: We need to open our hearts to one another in caring, interactive community, not merely sit through religious lectures!

Your mind and your heart need premium fuel, not just religious words routinely spoken. Daily read the Bible with an open heart and fill up your think-tank with hope.

Help others hope. Please share this “Free Gas” blog with the link:

Hopethoughts.com

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My favorite people are Spirit-surrendered and Spirit-led!

Posted on November 24, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Who are your current most favorite people?
View all responses

My most favorite people are like this:

If Jesus is truly our present and living Lord, we need to be led by God’s Spirit (the kingdom/government of God within us), not by religious hierarchy. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension brought us to the place where we can now be directly Spirit-taught and Spirit-led. We no longer need to be caught up in and controlled by a religious organization (like the Pharisees and Sadducees were). It’s time we sought to be Spirit-taught. “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Jesus told His disciples that when He is physically gone, the Holy Spirit will come and be inside them. Then He said, “I will come to you.” Paul put it this way: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Jesus said that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” He also said: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own, He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify Me because it is from Me that He will receive what He will make known to you.”

John, speaking about the Holy Spirit, wrote: “You do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit — just as it has taught you, remain in Him.” The resurrected Jesus in the book of Revelation kept repeating, “He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the ekklesias (Christ’s Spirit-led, participatory town hall meeting).”

As Spirit-led and Spirit-taught people are brought to the same spiritual insights and revelations they are supernaturally connected heart-to-heart. For example, I am amazed how often I have a conversation with someone about the Lord and God’s Spirit has shown and is showing them the same things that He is showing me. Then in a moment, we find ourselves in a deeply heart-felt connection as we behold the risen Jesus in each other.

It’s important that all Christians humbly share what the Spirit is showing them, not what they’ve learned from a sermon, a commentary, a class, a program, a curriculum, or a preacher. Jesus said the Spirit is speaking. We need to cultivate our ears to hear the Spirit of Christ so we can be united heart-to-heart in our faith. (When Christians argue and arrogantly disagree, we aren’t listening to and being led by the Holy Spirit. We aren’t reflecting and demonstrating Christ’s presence and love.)

It’s vital that Christians are trained, encouraged, and released to individually hear and obey the Spirit of Christ. Then we will be led together into “the acts of Jesus continued” and people who come into our presence will have their hearts exposed and recognize Christ in and among us and say, “God is really among you.” (1 Corinthians 14:24 and 25.)

God’s Spirit only exalts one person–the living, resurrected Jesus Christ. If anyone else is being exalted, that’s not the Spirit.

Posted in Be filled with the Spirit, Christian spirituality, demonstrations of the Spirit | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to build community

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Steve Simms

Open your heart. Be real, be vulnerable, be humble.

Community isn’t just a collection of people working together. It’s people who are connecting heart-to-heart with one another.

Community is more caught than taught. The best way to build it is to model it by revealing your heart in a way that touches other hearts. Let people see that you genuinely care about them as human beings and not just as members of an audience or a team.

Show people your heart-felt compassion, concern, caring, humility, passion, vision, dreams. If you refuse to hold back or hide your deep feelings and tender emotions, they will touch people’s hearts and connect them to you and to each other.

The next time you speak reveal more of who you really are. Then watch people’s heart-connections grow and expand.

Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com
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Thank who? (A Thanksgiving Quiz)

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Steve Simms

Who do you say thank you to . . . (check all that apply)

  • A server in a restaurant?
  • A clerk in a store?
  • A client or customer?
  • Your doctor?
  • Your barber or hair stylist?
  • Your mechanic?
  • The person who delivers packages to your door?
  • Someone who is kind to you?]
  • Everyone who helps or serves you in any way?
  • Your father?
  • Your mother?
  • Your siblings?
  • Your children?
  • Your friends?
  • Your neighbors?
  • God the Father?
  • God the Son (the risen Jesus)?
  • God the Holy Spirit?
  • None of the above?

True gratitude is more than passive sentimentalism. It includes saying: “Thank you.” Thanksgiving Day isn’t about having a happy day (or wishing others one). It’s about actually telling people and God, “Thank You.”

Thank you for reading this and taking the quiz. May your heart and life overflow with thanksgiving today!

It’s nice to wish people a happy Thanksgiving Day. It’s more in line with the name of the day to actually thank them for something. (Thanksgiving is a great day to open your mouth and say, “Thank You, Jesus,” loudly and clearly! Give it a go today!)

See more, realize more, and experience more of God’s glory. To repent is to look unto Jesus and to align our heart and will with Him. The more we open our eyes and delight in Christ’s light the more we are delivered from darkness and the more our heart is strangely warmed and molded from glory to glory into His likeness.

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How To Avoid Hollow Days During The Holidays

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Steve Simms

Holiday hype is hollow and seldom satisfies the human heart. Jesus was born once, not once a year. Because of Jesus we can be born again and transformed by His presence.

Superficial holidays frequently feel like hollow days. Open your heart and dig deeper into the true meaning of Thanksgiving and Christmas and experience the supernatural reality behind them.

The Hollow-Day Season? Thanksgiving without a sincere “Thank You, Jesus,” and Christmas without a heart-felt “Praise You, Jesus,” make for an empty Hollow-Day Season.

Hollow days are seldom happy. Hollow days echo with loneliness and create a mental daze without end. Let the risen Jesus who was born in Bethlehem fill your days with hope.

The holidays that make me happy involve thanking God and adoring Jesus! A holiday song that isn’t about Jesus Christ isn’t a true Christmas song. Unless we focus on, listen to, and obey the living Jesus, the Christmas season is nothing more than happy holidays.

The best Christmas decorations are when Christ decorates your heart with His presence. When Jesus is truly living inside of you, every day is Christmas! Christ’s forgiveness can give you a white Christmas every day. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

Holidays?
If you’re experiencing
A hollow daze
During the holidays,
Turn your gaze
And your praise
Toward Jesus
And let Him raise
Your level of peace.

If you’ll let God’s Spirit
Fill your days
With His praise
The mental haze
Will clear
And you’ll hear
Him speaking
In your inner ear.

Holiday noise
And distracting
Traditions and toys
Often keep us from
Experiencing the true joys
Of celebrating the birth
And experiencing the presence
Of the living Jesus Christ.

Photo by Jason Deines on Pexels.com
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Using the keys to the kingdom of God

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Steve Simms

Jesus Christ is the living, present King who is calling us to personally, intimately, and corporately align with the kingdom of God. To be a part of a kingdom is to be led by a king. Citizens of the kingdom of God are supposed to be led by the risen King Jesus working in and through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus gave His followers the keys to God’s kingdom. He said that we can use them to lock (to bind) and to unlock (to loose), but what are we supposed to lock and to unlock? To effectively use the keys to the kingdom of God it’s essential that you know what to lock (bind) and what to unlock (loose). We need to lock and shut down every thought, feeling, desire, action, word, belief, or opinion that hinders God’s will and to unlock and release every one that aligns with God’s will.

To know God’s will we need to always be ready and willing to hear and obey what God’s Spirit is saying in and through our conscience. We need to daily read the Scriptures with an open heart and to ponder and obey them throughout the day. And we need to connect heart-to-heart with other Christ-followers who are connected heart-to-heart with, listening to, and obeying the risen King Jesus.

People who have never used the keys of the kingdom to unlock their hurting heart can’t appreciate the incredible value of those keys! Loosen your heart to flow with and obey the Spirit of God. Open up and let Jesus unlock and heal the hurt that has hardened your heart. Make your heart so open to Jesus that your openness to Him becomes highly contagious.

Until Christians are trained to wisely use the keys of the kingdom of God, much will stay locked to us. “The kingdom of God is within you.” The keys of the kingdom are designed to lock and unlock the thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, and opinions that are churning inside you. Use those keys wisely! By effectively using the keys of the kingdom, you can create and maintain a hope-filled, glorious, and joyous atmosphere within you.

Use the keys of the kingdom to lock down the wrongful thoughts, feelings, and desires that torment you. The keys to God’s kingdom can bring freedom to the captives who are locked up and confined in a closed heart. If your keys aren’t working and you feel like you’re locked out of your noblest hopes and dreams, ask Jesus to give you His keys.

“Lock ’em up!” Cast out the demons that torment your mind and bind them up so they can no longer bully you! Christ’s keys can unlock the inner locks that have your mind and heart locked in self-destructive pattern.

Jesus offers His followers
Supernatural keys
That can unlock
Closed hearts
And fill them
With the hope
Of unlimited possibilities.

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Posted in kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, kingdom of priests | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The question I was asked as a 10-year-old

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
View all responses

I grew up in a non-religious, non-church-going family in the Bible Belt. (We finally started regularly attending a church when I was in junior high school, but I didn’t like it.) Once when I was about 10 years old my family visited a small church and I found myself in a kid’s Sunday School class of a few children. I was expecting a religious lesson, but instead the teacher asked today’s writing prompt: “If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be?” (Her wording might have been slightly different, but that was her question.)

Then the teacher called on each child and they gave various answers. One kid answered Jesus Christ. When it became my turn to speak out in that historical roll call, I also answered Jesus. The teacher acted like Jesus was just like the other interesting historical figures — dead and gone. She used the rest of the class to give us moral lessons from the dead people we had mentioned and left us thinking that Jesus was no more than an ethical example to teach us to behave properly.

It was about nine years later when I learned that that class was a lie! I discovered firsthand that the eternal God who became a man as Jesus Christ isn’t dead stuck in the past or passively waiting for the future. He’s alive, present, and active here and now! In a moment something incredible happened in my heart and Jesus became more real to me than my physical surroundings. I’ve never been the same.

I met a historical figure who died and rose again and has been my constant companion and best friend ever since that moment. History is truly His story and Jesus invites all people to let Him be their closest friend and personal guide through life. We are called to live in a glorious now with the risen Jesus, not just to long for Him in the past or in the future. Will you?

The elephant in the universe is its grand design and intricate precision. From the smallest atoms to the human Adams everything in the universe is assembled in astonishing ways.

Perhaps a better question (writing prompt) is: “What is me?” What is this conscious awareness and sense of being within me? I believe it’s a reflection of the Being who made me.

As I was writing this as a visitor in someone’s home, I realized that I needed a picture to go with it. I glanced to my right and noticed the spine of a particular book on a bookshelf. I walked over and pulled it out and it’s the perfect picture for this post: Guns, Germs, And Steel — The Fates of Human Societies.

All human societies end. The risen, eternal Jesus never does.

Posted in experiencing Jesus, human history, world history | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

When your instincts stink, let your conscience fumigate your heart.

Posted on November 19, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
Do you trust your instincts?
View all responses

Sometimes instincts stink. That’s when it’s important to let your conscience fumigate your heart.

I’ve never been able to trust my instincts (my innate desires and behavior patterns) to lead me to joy, inner peace, and general wellbeing. When I abandon logic to follow my own feelings and desires, they tend to produce varying degrees of misery, anxiety, and trouble for me.

However, there is something within me that I have discovered that I can trust. That’s my conscience. When I obey its quiet inner voice (even when I prefer to do something else), it steers me clear of the pitfalls of my destructive desires, feelings, and thoughts and guides me to guilt free living.

I believe that Jesus, who rose from the dead and continues to interact with human beings today, speaks through my conscience (and yours). If that’s true, nothing on earth is more important than to listen to and obey Him. That’s called discipleship.

When Christianity abandoned discipleship, it jumped ship and sank into routine religion. Discipleship avoids the person who is causing most of your problems (that person is you) by continually surrendering yourself to the risen Jesus. Then, by His Spirit, He will lead and direct you infinitely more effectively that you are able to run your own life.

I sincerely believe that God’s good news involves pointing people to His spiritual glue that connects the body of Christ heart-to-heart — the living, resurrected Jesus, and encouraging people to go beyond church as usual and to surrender directly to and daily obey Jesus with no intermediary. Martin Luther called that “the priesthood of the believer” and most Protestants (including preachers) celebrate Luther’s bold stand.

I don’t enjoy being controversial but what I write and post comes from deep within me. From many decades of reading church history and multitudes of ancient Christian authors, daily reading the Bible with an open heart, and wholeheartedly seeking to obey my conscience and the Holy Spirit, I am convinced that there is so much more to Christianity than what is typically presented in church. I can’t be quiet about that even when I try.

Regularly
Sitting through a sermon
Until the sermon’s through
Is not God’s spiritual glue
That connects people
Heart-to-heart.

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Posted in conscience, self-discipline, self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Finding hope during bleak weather

Posted on November 18, 2023 by Steve Simms
Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?
View all responses

January offers the opportunity for a fresh start during the darkest month of the year. When made and persistently maintained by hope and faith, New Year’s resolutions can turn into life-changing inner revolutions. Every year January 1 reminds people that they can alter their course by discovering and embracing hope with their whole heart.


When hope lights up your heart you can experience peace in a world that’s falling apart. Hope’s not spontaneous. Unless it’s intentionally planted and cultivated in your heart it won’t automatically sprout and grow. Make your heart a home for hope.

A heart that rejects hope is beyond repair. Give hope a chance. While you’re breathing there’s hope. Once you’re dead it’ll be too late for hope.

People who carry hope high in their heart create hope wherever they go. Hoist high your hope.

Hopelessness is a sad word. Trim it down to the first 4 letters! It’s hard to find hope if you’re looking for it in all the wrong places. Hunt for hope outside of your familiar discomfort zone. Dare to dash through the door of simple heart-felt happiness.

The world needs
More hope
And less
Hopelessness.

Hopeless resolutions
Offer no solutions
For overcoming
Mental and emotional
Inertia and despair.
We need a heart-change,
Of life-transforming
Inner revolutions.

Hunting hope
Helps people cope
Much better than
Doing dope.

When you’re
In a mess
That feels hopeless,
Invite hope
To reduce your stress.

Hope
Opens
People up to
Encouragment.

Darkness and confusion
Create much illusion.
Without an infusion
Of heart-felt hope
We reach a false conclusion
And embrace delusion.
Search for hope to find it.

People who
Say nope
To hope
Jump into
A sinking boat.

Let hope
Be your soap
On a rope.
Always keep it
Closely tied
To your heart.

Addiction
To hope
Will help
You cope.

Is Jesus just a story?
Or is “Christ in you
The hope of glory”?

Even Christians need more hope. We need to be more committed to following and obeying the living Jesus than we are to attending church programs.

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Posted in high hopes, hope, hopefullness, how to have a happy new year | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Can hardships harbor hope?

Posted on November 17, 2023 by Steve Simms

The New Testament calls Christians disciples — trained and disciplined Christ-followers. When Paul and Barnabas wanted to strengthen the disciples and to encourage them to remain true to the faith, they told them: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:21-28.) How is that the sound of encouragement?

Hardships cause true Christ followers to humbly and deeply need each other and to rely more and more on the risen Jesus as our present King, Lord, and Master as we are drawn together in genuine, heart-felt, Christ-led community. To further strengthen and encourage the body of Christ, Paul and Barnabus appointed groups of elders, mature believers to be servant overseers in each Spirit-led, open-sharing community of disciples (see 1 Corinthians 14:26) named and modeled after the ekklesia, the participatory town hall meetings in Greek cities. Then “with prayer and fasting” they “committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.”

The early Christians didn’t trust in organization or human hierarchy and authority. (See Matthew 20: 25-28.) Their trust was in the living Jesus. They wanted to follow Him and as they did, they lived out the 50+ one another commands of the New Testament, in their daily lives and when they met together. Mature believers served as elders/overseers to keep the focus on everyone listening to and obeying the risen Jesus from their heart, and not on mere outward forms of godliness or on human hierarchy and control. They let their trials and tribulations continually connect their hearts to each other with Spirit-given compassion and caring for one another. They overflowed with joy and love from the real presence of Christ living and working inside and through them.

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