Brian Simmons and his wife Candice have been described as true pioneers in ministry. Their teaching has opened doors in many nations to the Gospel. For the last forty years, Brian has been a linguist, pastor, missionary, and speaker and now brings all those gifts together to lead the translation work for The Passion Translation.
Translation Works:
Luke & Acts: To the Lovers of God
A day doesn't go by when someone forgets the promises they made — to their employees, to the ones who elected them, to us.
A business owner promises there will be no more layoffs, and then six months later another round of your friends are sent packing. The president promises no new taxes, and two years later you're giving more of your paycheck to Uncle Sam.
Or how about something more personal: your friend promises to keep your deepest struggle to herself, yet a week later you catch wind that everyone in your circle knows what haunts you; you believe your husband's promise to stop his Internet habit once and for all, only to discover the same smutty websites back in his web browser history.
People fail us left and right, and one of the main reasons is because they forget their promises—no, they break their promises.
Not God, not the Mighty One!
He is the never-forgetting, always promise-keeping God. And that's something to jump up and down with joy over, isn't it?
Mary sure does. She sings about her joy because she's ecstatic, she overflows with praises to God, her spirit bursts with joy over her life-giving God. One of the reasons she sings this way is:
"because [the Mighty One] can never forget to show mercy, he has helped his chosen servant, Israel, keeping his promises to Abraham and to his descendants forever." (TPT)
Our God never forgets to show mercy. Israel had sung about this mercy for generations with several Psalms, like Psalm 36:
"But you, O Lord, your mercy-seat love is limitless, Reaching higher than the highest heavens. Your great faithfulness is so infinite, stretching over the whole earth. Your tender care and kindness leave no one forgotten, not a man nor even a mouse. God, how extravagant is your cherishing love!" (TPT)
For generations, God had helped his chosen servant, Israel. Despite the countless times they turned their backs on him, God didn't give them what they deserved. That's enough for anyone to jump up with joy!
But God's love for His people doesn't stop there. Because not only does he never fail to show mercy, God never, never forgets. No matter how big the promise, no matter how old the promise, our God is the never-forgetting, always promise-keeping God. To the point of making good on a promise he gave way back to the very first of his chosen people, Abraham.
In Genesis 12, God promised to make a great nation out of Abraham; to bless those who blessed him and curse those cursed him; to bless all peoples on the planet through him and his offspring. And Mary recognized that this was the moment God was making good on his promise — not only to the Jewish people, but to all peoples. Through her Son, God finally made good on his promise.
Because God is a never-forgetting, always promise-keeping God, we have forgiveness from sins, release from shame and guilt, and all the blessings of this life and the next.
If that's not reason to join with Mary in jumping up and down in ecstatic, overflowing, soul-bursting joy—then I don't know what is!
Excerpted from Brian Simmons and THE PASSION TRANSLATION. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Simmons. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Do you know what a forerunner is? Are you one?
Dictionary.com says a forerunner is “a person or thing coming in advance to herald the arrival of someone or something.”
Two thousand years ago, an angel of the Lord announced to a very old man, Zechariah, that his yet-born-child would “go before the Lord as a forerunner”—as a person coming in advance to announce the arrival of someone else.
That someone else was Jesus!
When Zechariah’s son, John, began his ministry, the apostle John records that he described it in this way: “I am fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy: ‘I am an urgent, thundering voice shouting in the desert—clear the way and prepare your hearts for the coming of the Lord Yahweh!’” (
, TPT)John made it clear he was not the Anointed One come to bring the world; he was his forerunner, the one who came to clear the way and prepare people’s hearts for his coming. And when the Lord did come, John got out to the way and turned all eyes on Jesus: “Look! There he is—God’s Lamb! He will take away the sins of the world!” (
)For years John carried with him the message about what Jesus would do: rescue the world and put it back together again by taking away our sins. Isaiah says such people who carry good news, proclaim peace, bear good tidings, and preach salvation from mountain to mountain have “beautiful feet.”
John’s feet were beautiful because he was a forerunner—running before the Prince of Peace to announce his coming peace. Are yours as beautiful? Are you a forerunner of the Lord, like John?
Do you know the Bible describes one other person as a forerunner? Who do you think it was? Yes, Jesus Christ himself! Read how the author of Hebrews describes our Lord:
“We have this certain hope like a strong, unbreakable anchor holding our souls to God himself. Our anchor of hope is fastened to the mercy seat that sits in the heavenly realm beyond the sacred threshold, and where Jesus, our Forerunner, has gone in before us. He is now and forever our Royal Priest like Melchizedek.” (
)Jesus is our forerunner because “he has entered once and forever into the Holiest Sanctuary of All, not with the blood of animal sacrifices, but the sacred blood of his own sacrifice. And he alone has made our salvation secure forever!” (
)Because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection we have been declared not guilty through our faith in him—which has brought us peace with God. Because he was pierced for our rebellion and crushed for our sins, we have peace and we’ve been healed!
This message of peace and healing is the message John carried with him into his world. We are invited to follow his lead by carrying that same message of peace and healing with us as well.
This Christmas, may you shout from the rooftops or the mountains that the Savior of the world has been born. May you carry to the people in your life the same peace you’ve experienced by announcing the arrival of Prince of Peace—so that your feet are declared as beautiful as John’s!
Excerpted from Brian Simmons and THE PASSION TRANSLATION.
Copyright © 2014 by Brian Simmons. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Life Shift. Sometimes there are those moments in life when everything just shifts.
You’re driving along, and all of a sudden brake lights—and then your front end ends up in the back end of the car in front of you. Life shift.
Your teenage daughter sits you down and says she got a blue plus sign on the white stick she bought at the local CVS; she’s pregnant. Life shift.
Your aging parent gets the results you were dreading—Alzheimer’s, and the next twenty years you’ll be caring for her. Life shift.
And in each scenario you’re left saying, “How could this happen?”
Now imagine you’re minding your own business, and an angel of the Lord appears to you and says, “The Lord has found delight in you and has chosen to surprise you with a wonderful gift. You will become pregnant with a baby boy, and you are to name him Jesus.”
Major life shift! Of course that’s exactly what happened to Mary.
Ever wonder what was going through her mind? Confusion? Nervousness? Excitement? Fear?
Probably lots of the former and lots of the latter because as she said, “But how could this happen? I’m still a virgin!”
You see Mary was most likely thirteen years old—at the most sixteen. Not twenty or thirty like she’s often portrayed in movies and Christmas pageants. Thirteen.
She was also engaged—which in her world meant she and Joseph were legally married, except for the sexual relations part, which came later. And now she was pregnant, which had major social consequences for Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Since Mary and Joseph were legally married, any sexual relations outside that relationship would have been considered adultery—she would have been labeled a sotah, a suspected adulteress.
Immediately after hearing these words from the angel that she was pregnant, she would have connected her pregnancy to being a sotah—and everything that came with it. The humiliation, the shame from a public trial to determine her guilt. She would have wondered how Joseph would respond to the news, being that he was a good Torah-observing Jew. Would he go through with the trial? Divorce her as the Law required? Leave her stranded and financially ruined?
She probably feared for her unborn child, too, for when he grew up. Fear for the taunts and accusations of being a mamzar—an illegitimate child—and everything that label carried with it.
And yet, how did Mary respond?
Let’s be honest, if it was any one of us we might have gotten angry at this life shift. We for sure would have feared its consequences.
Not Mary. Instead she replied, “This is amazing! I will be a mother for the Lord! As his servant, I accept whatever he has for me. May everything you have told me come to pass.” (
)Instead of yielding to her fears because of her shifted circumstances, she was at peace with them. And that peace gave her the courage to obey, to accept whatever it was the Lord had for her.
May Mary’s example of peace compel us this Christmas season to accept whatever life-shift moments come our way in the coming year. And may we look to her Son, the Prince of Peace, to be our peace.
Excerpted from Brian Simmons and THE PASSION TRANSLATION.
Copyright © 2014 by Brian Simmons. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Stories with reversals make the best tales, don’t they? We cheer for the high school nerd who gets the girl while the popular jock is left in the dust. We shout for joy when the quaint, small mountain town fends off a large New York development firm from building a ski resort. And we’re happy to see the upstart political campaign win against the well-financed veteran from D.C.
These kinds of stories are so great because life doesn’t always turn out this way in the real world. Often it seems like the ones who win are the rich, well connected, and powerful; while the poor, defenseless, and weak suffer the consequences.
What’s so great about God’s Story is that what rarely happens in real life actually comes true! The lowly are lifted, the high and mighty are torn down, the proud are scattered, the hungry are filled.
By stepping into our world, God through Jesus Christ paved the way for deliverance from the wickedness that comes from the proud, mighty, and rich.
And yet, what God is revealing here through Mary’s song isn’t simply the demise of political dictators and fat-cat CEOs. Rather, anyone who does not fear God and look to him to supply their needs is in trouble.
You see, part of the problem with the mighty, the proud, and the rich is that their hope isn’t in God but in themselves. And Mary’s song (
) warns that God is against such people — tearing them down and sending them away empty. Because only “those who hunger for [the Mighty One] will always be filled.” ( , TPT)The “smug and self-satisfied,” however, “He will send away empty.” These people are anyone who is self-sufficient and declare they need no salvation. God raises up the lowly, but the mighty want to raise up themselves. Throughout Luke’s gospel, this spirit of self-exaltation is the key to sinfulness — as
says, “The higher you lift up yourself in pride, the harder you’ll fall in disgrace.”In Luke 6, Jesus speaks blessings over the lowly and the hungry — just like in Mary’s song. But to the rich and the well fed, “What sorrows await,” Jesus says.
Through Mary and her “mighty miracle,” God is finally delivering his people — all people — but that deliverance, mercy, and salvation only extends to those who fear him, the song says. To those who trust God and God alone for that rescue.
This season, what do you need deliverance from? Are you looking to God or yourself? “Be willing to be made low before the Lord, and he will exalt you!” James reminds us in
(TPT).Because unlike real life, our God produces the greatest of reversals by lifting up the lowly. God the Father did so for his Son, raising him from the dead when all seemed lost; God the Son did so for you, by dying for you at just the right time when you were dead in your sins; God the Holy Spirit continues to work on our behalf, keeping his promises to Abraham’s descendants forever — all of which is cause for great joy!
Excerpted from Brian Simmons and THE PASSION TRANSLATION. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Simmons. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Do you ever wonder if God understands your life? Whether he really understands what it means to be human and deal with all the stuff we have to deal with—the stress and worry, the health scares and difficult teenagers, the bills and demanding bosses?
Amazingly he does! We don’t serve a distant and removed God, like the Romans and the Greeks did. No, we serve a God who, in the words of the angel who visited Joseph, “became one of us!”
As a good Jew, along with all of his people, Joseph would have been waiting for the Anointed One God promised to send to save his people. What Joseph—or his people for that matter—would not have expected was that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, would conceive a child in his fiancée’s womb and “be known as ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God became one of us!’” (
, TPT)Look at how various people throughout the New Testament described this monumental Emmanuel-event:
John says in his Gospel that “the Living Expression [Jesus Christ] became a man and lived among us! And we gazed upon the splendor of his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father overflowing with tender mercy and truth!” (
TPT)The writer of Hebrews wrote, “Since all his ‘children’ have flesh and blood, so Jesus became human to fully identify with us. He did this, so that he could experience death and annihilate the effects of the intimidating accuser who holds against us the power of death.” (
TPT)He doesn’t stop there, though; he goes on: “For we have a magnificent King-Priest, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who rose into the heavenly realm for us, and now sympathizes with us in our frailty. He understands humanity, for as a Man, our magnificent King-Priest was tempted in every way just as we are, and conquered sin. So now we come freely and boldly to where love is enthroned, to receive mercy’s kiss and discover the grace we urgently need to strengthen us in our time of weakness.” (
TPT)Think about this: The God of the universe “sympathizes with us in our frailty,” he “understands humanity.” How? Because he “became a man and lived among us,” as John says! He “became human to fully identify with us!”
God lived this life, which means he understands your life—all of your frailty and pain, your baggage and brokenness.
He understands humiliation because he was humiliated on the cross. He understands rejection because he was rejected. He understands sorrow because he was a man of sorrows.
Do you ever wonder if God understands your life? Well, wonder no more! Because the beauty and majesty of the Christmas season is that Mary gave birth to Emmanuel, to the God who became one of us.
May this truth give us all hope as we celebrate the first coming of the God-with-us God!
Excerpted from Brian Simmons and THE PASSION TRANSLATION. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Simmons. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Do you know the story of the candy cane?
Well, there’s this old legend about a nice old candy maker in Indiana. He loved to make candy, especially for little boys and girls.
One Christmas he decided to make a special kind of candy that would tell a special story, the story of Jesus.
The nice old candy maker from Indiana took a stick of pure white, hard candy. The color white reminds us that he never sinned.
If you ever ate a candy cane you know how hard it is, right? Like a rock. Mr. Candy Maker made it hard – to remind us that Jesus is our shelter—like a rocky cave.
And what letter does it look like? Yes a J! Which not only represents the name Jesus, but also the staff of the “Good Shepherd.” A shepherd picks up sheep with the rounded end then fights off wild animals with the other. Jesus helps us and keeps us safe.
Finally the candy maker put three red stripes around it to remind us of the pain Jesus went through on the cross for our sins, all so that we can be with God forever and have a life of peace.
So that’s the story of the candy cane. It tells us of Jesus and his great love for each of us. It also tells us of the peace we can have in life because of what he did.
Peace. What an interesting word. Peace is a hard thing to come by—peace for life, relationships, our health, our bank accounts, our jobs, our memories, our souls.
If you look in a thesaurus you’ll see the opposite words for peace are agitation and distress. A pretty good way to talk about life most of the time. And yet, the psalmist reminds us of a promised peace, a message every one of God’s godly lovers longs to hear.
Psalm 85 begins by remembering the peace Yahweh brought his people in the past: “[He] restored Israel from captivity,” and he forgave their “many sins and covered every one of them in [his] love.” (
, TPT)Next he listens for what Yahweh has to say. And what he has to say is this: the promise of peace. God’s power and presence is shining, his glory hovers over his people. Mercy and truth, righteousness and peace are kissing. Faithfulness is blooming, righteousness is shining. The Lord will give good things because “deliverance and peace are his forerunners preparing a path for his steps.” (
, TPT)In other words: peace and restoration are coming!
From the very beginning of our human story God promised to do something about all of the agitation and distress in our world. He promised to restore the peace.
And he did. He sent the Prince of Peace to come and do what we can’t do for ourselves. Jesus brings true, lasting peace. Jesus’s story announces in big, bright, bold colors the kind of peace that all of us are desperately searching for—which is offered to all people.
As the angel of the Lord said that first Christmas Eve:
“Glory to God in the highest realms of heaven! For there is peace and a good hope given to the sons of men.” (
)
May we know the promises of that peace deep down this Christmas season.
Excerpted from Brian Simmons and THE PASSION TRANSLATION.
Copyright © 2014 by Brian Simmons. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
