Metron Live

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

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What if the storm you need to calm isn’t happening around you, but within you? In this opening message of his new Metron Live series, Bishop Jim Swilley explores the connection between spirituality, mindset, emotional health, and the nervous system. Building on last month’s teachings about mindset, he examines how anxiety, prolonged stress, and our fight-or-flight responses shape our everyday experiences. Through the story of Jesus calming the storm, personal experiences with caregiving, financial responsibilities, and life’s uncertainties, Bishop Jim challenges us to discover a peace that doesn’t depend on perfect circumstances. Sometimes the greatest transformation isn’t changing what’s happening around us, but changing how we respond to it.

1. Peace Begins Within, Not Around You

When Jesus slept through the storm, He demonstrated an internal peace that wasn’t dependent on external conditions. Rather than fighting or fleeing the storm, He remained confident in His destination. We can learn to experience peace even when circumstances remain uncertain.

2. Your Nervous System Influences Your Reality

Our reactions aren’t exclusively mental or spiritual. They’re physiological, too. Bishop Jim explains how the nervous system processes stress and why seemingly minor situations can sometimes trigger overwhelming emotional responses. Understanding these patterns can help us respond more intentionally.

3. You May Still Be Living in Survival Mode

Prolonged stress can leave the nervous system on high alert even after the original threat has passed. Through stories about caring for his parents and managing major responsibilities, Bishop Jim illustrates how emotional burdens can become physical tension. Learning to be still means allowing both mind and body to experience rest.

4. Renewing Your Mind Changes Your Responses

Bishop Jim connects the biblical principle of renewing the mind with neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and change. Personal growth often becomes evident when we encounter familiar challenges but respond with greater calm, confidence, and understanding.

5. Not Every Concern Deserves Your Anxiety

There’s a difference between reasonable caution and unnecessary worry. Using examples from everyday life, Bishop Jim reminds us that being responsible doesn’t require being constantly anxious. We can acknowledge genuine concerns without allowing fear to dominate our thoughts.

6. Recognize How Much You’ve Already Overcome

Sometimes we’re so focused on current challenges that we forget everything we’ve already successfully navigated. Bishop Jim encourages us to recognize our resilience, acknowledge our growth, and remember that we’ve figured out difficult situations before.

7. Abundant Life Is Meant to Be Enjoyed

Life isn’t supposed to be an endless cycle of responsibility, stress, and sacrifice. Whether it’s taking a vacation, enjoying something you’ve worked for, or simply allowing yourself to rest, Bishop Jim reminds us that enjoying life is part of living abundantly.

“He wasn’t saying peace be still to the storm. He was saying peace be still to in here.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

Peace isn’t the absence of challenges. It’s learning to remain grounded while navigating them. You don’t have to eliminate every storm to experience stillness, and you don’t have to live in survival mode simply because you’ve become good at surviving.

Peace, be still.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

In this concluding message of Metron’s mindset series, Bishop Jim Swilley reframes being “born again” as something deeper than adopting a religious belief: it is a return to the original way we were created to see ourselves, other people, and the world. Using the analogy of the settings on a phone, Bishop Jim explains that many of our automatic reactions are produced by mental settings accumulated through family, religion, fear, trauma, survival, culture, and experience. Some of those settings once protected or taught us something important, but others have become obsolete and continue triggering reactions long after they are useful. Spiritual transformation, then, involves becoming conscious of those settings and intentionally changing them. Drawing from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, the message presents being born again as recovering our “factory settings”—learning again to see without inherited prejudice, unnecessary fear, resentment, or limitation. Bishop Jim closes the series by identifying four settings that can reshape how we experience life: gratitude, understanding, forgiveness, and humor. Pasted text

Gratitude → Understanding → Forgiveness → Humor

Rather than allowing fear, resentment, inherited assumptions, or old survival mechanisms to remain the default, Bishop Jim proposes deliberately making these four perspectives the settings through which we process life.

“You go through life and you collect these different settings that are obsolete now, and they’re not serving you.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

That statement captures the central idea of the message: spiritual growth isn’t necessarily about becoming someone entirely new. Sometimes it is about identifying what has accumulated over the years, keeping the wisdom, deleting what is obsolete, and returning to the clearer vision that was there before fear taught us how to see.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

In Part 3 of “If Your Eye Is Single,” Bishop Jim Swilley continues exploring mindset as the internal “setting” through which we interpret our lives. His central argument is that many things traditionally understood as spiritual warfare, strongholds, demons, and adversaries can also be understood as patterns of thought that oppose our purpose and distort our perception. Rather than arguing with an unhealthy setting, we can recognize it, change it, and consciously choose a different response. Through Scripture, personal stories, and unconventional interpretations of biblical imagery, Bishop Jim emphasizes that transformation happens when we stop surrendering authority to inherited beliefs, fear, past experiences, or negative thinking and begin examining the mental settings through which we interpret reality. Difficulty may still come, but our response determines what that difficulty produces in us.

Matthew 6:22–23 — “If your eye be single…”

Romans 15:4 — Scripture was written for instruction so that through endurance and its encouragement we might maintain hope.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 — The weapons of our warfare are not carnal; they pull down strongholds, cast down imaginations, and bring thoughts into obedience. This is one of the clearest biblical connections to the message’s emphasis on mindset.

Daniel 10 — The Prince of Persia becomes an image Bishop Jim uses for entrenched thoughts that seem to delay or resist truths already known within the spirit.

Exodus 14 — Moses and the Red Sea illustrate the capacity that can emerge when circumstances force us beyond what we previously believed we could do.

Psalm 112:7 — The person whose heart is established is not afraid of bad news.

Psalm 138:8 — “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.” Bishop Jim describes this as one of the truths that became deeply established in his own thinking.

Romans 8:28 — “All things work together for good…” The message emphasizes developing a mindset capable of looking for transformation even within difficulty.

Romans 12:2 — “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This captures the larger theme of changing the internal settings through which life is perceived.

Philippians 4:7 — The “peace that passes understanding” illustrates an inner experience that can transcend the apparent logic of circumstances.

John 16:33 — “In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

“You’re not obligated to believe everything you think.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

That line captures the heart of this installment: thoughts can be examined rather than automatically obeyed. A mindset may have been established years ago and remained silently active—like an alarm setting waiting until 3:00 a.m. to reveal itself. Becoming conscious of the setting gives us the opportunity to change it.

Another line that strongly captures the closing movement of the message is:

“I’m going to start declaring the end from the beginning. I’m going to prophesy my own resurrection.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

The message ultimately moves from examining inherited beliefs to consciously choosing expectation: I will get through this. I will learn from this. I will become stronger. This circumstance does not get to write the ending of my story.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

This message continues Bishop Jim Swilley’s teaching on mindset, using the image of the crown of thorns as a metaphor for old mental settings, defenses, survival patterns, shame, and self-blame that may once have protected us but now cause pain. The central challenge is to recognize that what appears to be a problem with life may actually be an outdated setting through which we interpret life. Jim encourages listeners to forgive themselves for decisions made with the understanding they had at the time, examine old wounds without defensiveness, and move into a renewed way of thinking. The crown of thorns represents the old mindset; resurrection represents living from a new one.

Luke 23:34 — “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Jim turns this inward as an invitation toward self-forgiveness: forgive yourself for what you didn’t yet understand.

Romans 12:2 — “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This strongly parallels the message’s central image of changing your mental settings.

Matthew 16:24 — Jesus’ call to “take up his cross” becomes part of Jim’s exploration of the cross as transformation rather than simply punishment.

Genesis 3:11 — “Who told thee that thou wast naked?” Jim connects this with the voices and experiences that taught people to feel ashamed, exposed, or unworthy.

Psalm 23:6 — “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Past mistakes do not prevent goodness and mercy from continuing to operate.

Romans 8:28 — “All things work together for good.” Even experiences we wish we could change can ultimately become part of our growth.

2 Corinthians 5:17 — “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” The old mental setting does not have to define the person who exists now.

“The thorns were protections that you developed over the years that no longer serve you.”

That captures the heart of the message: you don’t have to hate the version of yourself that developed the thorns. You can understand why they were necessary, forgive yourself, and recognize when it’s finally time to take the crown off.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

Bishop Jim Swilley begins a new series centered on mindset—not simply what we think in a given moment, but the deeper, habitual way we interpret ourselves, other people, and the world around us. Using Jesus’ words, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22), Jim argues that our internal lens can become one of the strongest forces shaping our lived experience. A mindset formed through fear, scarcity, rejection, victimization, or old experiences can keep recreating the same patterns. But mindset is not permanently fixed. Through awareness, spiritual growth, personal responsibility, and small intentional changes, we can reshape the way we see—and ultimately reshape the reality we experience.

Matthew 6:22 — “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”

Matthew 6:25–34 — Jesus’ teaching on worry, provision, considering the lilies, and seeking first the Kingdom.

Psalm 138:8 — “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.”

Proverbs 21:5 — The thoughts/plans of the diligent lead toward abundance.

Matthew 25:14–30 — The parable of the talents and the contrasting responses of the servants.

Matthew 25:31–46 — “I was hungry, and ye gave me meat…” connecting spirituality with our response to others.

Mark 7:13 — Tradition can make the Word ineffective, reinforcing Jim’s point about deeply established patterns of thought.

“Your mindset can be your personal hell.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

That statement captures the heart of the teaching. The good news is that mindset can change. Jim closes by reminding us that we have the mind of Christ and can become increasingly open to the Spirit, learning to think better, live better, and continually shape and reshape our reality.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

Bishop Jim Swilley closes this installment of The Healing Word: Everything Is Energy and We’re All Connected by exploring how the emotional and spiritual energy we absorb—especially early in life—can continue shaping our identity, relationships, choices, and even our experience of healing. Through personal stories about family, grief and closure, the woman with the issue of blood, forgiveness, Dolly Parton’s formative influences, and Zach’s testimony about his sister rebuilding her life, Jim challenges us to recognize what belongs to us and what we have simply carried for someone else. Healing begins when we tell ourselves the truth without condemnation, release inherited shame and limiting beliefs, and intentionally choose the energy of freedom, affirmation, health, and life.

James 5:13–16 — Prayer, healing, anointing, and speaking well-being over those experiencing weakness or difficulty.

Mark 5:25–34 / Luke 8:43–48 — The woman with the issue of blood reaches for Jesus and is healed; Jesus publicly calls her “Daughter.”

Leviticus 15:19–30 — The purity laws surrounding a woman’s menstrual cycle and prolonged bleeding, providing important cultural context for the woman with the issue of blood.

Jeremiah 6:14 — “Peace, peace; when there is no peace,” highlighting the danger of addressing symptoms without confronting deeper wounds.

James 4:2 — “Ye have not, because ye ask not.”

Luke 4:18 / Isaiah 61:1 — “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” and the proclamation of liberty to the captives.

John 8:32, 36 — The truth makes us free, and “if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

2 Corinthians 3:17 — “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Ephesians 2:6 — We are raised up and seated together in heavenly places.

“Forgiving a situation is saying, ‘I can’t let your energy fester in me anymore.’”

That thought captures the heart of the message: you can acknowledge what happened, tell the truth about it, forgive what needs to be forgiven, and refuse to spend the rest of your life carrying energy that was never yours.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

Bishop Jim Swilley continues “The Healing Word” by turning the focus inward: the most powerful healing word we may ever hear is the one we learn to speak to ourselves. He reframes “familiar spirits” as familiar patterns of thought—old stories, survival mechanisms, fears, and emotional responses that once protected us but can eventually prevent us from moving forward. Healing does not require denying pain or pretending difficult experiences never happened. Instead, it requires changing the energy we continue giving those experiences. Like the man at Bethesda, we can remember the bed without remaining confined to it. Through renewed thinking, healthy relationships, empathy, and a willingness to interrupt familiar patterns, we can transform the internal dialogue that shapes our present reality.

“Sometimes a thought just needs to be interrupted and redirected.”
— Bishop Jim Swilley

Another line that captures the heart of the message is:

“You still keep your story. You still remember that you were on that bed. It’s just that now you’re changing the energy on it.”
— Bishop Jim Swilley

Psalm 107:20 — “He sent His word and healed them.”

Romans 12:2 — “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

John 5:1–9 — Jesus tells the man at Bethesda to rise, take up his bed, and walk.

Matthew 12:43–45 — The unclean spirit seeks to return to its familiar house.

Mark 5:1–13 — Legion resists being sent away from familiar territory.

Acts 17:28 — “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

Romans 12:15 — “Weep with those who weep.”

Proverbs 15:23 — The power of “a word spoken in due season.”

Matthew 26:39 — Jesus acknowledges His suffering while continuing forward.

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

Bishop Jim Swilley continues “The Healing Word” by exploring healing not simply as something that comes vertically “from God,” but as something that also moves horizontally through human connection, relationships, words, thoughts, and presence. Beginning with Jesus healing the centurion’s servant from a distance, Jim considers how difficult circumstances can actually become catalysts for revelation. The message moves into the power of our thoughts and intentions, while avoiding the simplistic idea that every negative experience is something we somehow attracted. Ultimately, the emphasis is on connection: sometimes the healing word is encouragement, sometimes it is simply hearing the voice of someone you trust, and sometimes it is an uncomfortable truth spoken by someone who loves you. Healing happens as we remain open, nurture our relationships, release offenses, reframe painful memories, and become intentional about the energy and words we send into one another’s lives.

1. Sometimes the negative becomes the catalyst for revelation.
Jim returns to the Roman centurion who tells Jesus, “speak the word only” and his servant will be healed. The centurion understood that physical proximity was not necessary for healing. Jim’s larger point is that circumstances that make us uncomfortable, insecure, rejected, or seemingly trapped can sometimes push us into seeing possibilities we would never have considered otherwise.

Scripture: Matthew 8:5–13; Romans 8:28; Hebrews 11:7

“Sometimes the worst thing that ever happened to you may be the best thing that ever happened to you.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

2. The healing word is not limited by distance.
Psalm 107 says that God “sent his word, and healed them.” Jim connects this with prayer, positive intention, “sending good energy,” and simply intentionally holding another person in your thoughts. Different people may use different terminology, but the underlying idea is connection that transcends physical distance.

Scripture: Psalm 107:20; Matthew 8:8

3. Healing is horizontal as well as vertical.
Spirituality is not only about our relationship with God. Jim emphasizes the importance of the “horizontal beam” — our relationships with one another. Jesus connected loving God with loving our neighbor, making human relationship an essential expression of spiritual life.

Scripture: Matthew 22:37–40; Ecclesiastes 4:12

“It’s the relationships in your life that reveal the Christ to you.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

4. Prayer should seek agreement rather than control.
Prayer can become unhealthy when it is really an attempt to make another person’s circumstances conform to what we think should happen. Jim argues that before praying for someone, we should understand what that person actually wants rather than assuming we know the proper outcome.

Scripture: Romans 8:26; Matthew 18:19

5. Mature spirituality moves beyond everything being simply good or bad.
Using the imagery of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil versus the Tree of Life, Jim challenges binary thinking. Heroes can be flawed. Villains can be wounded people. Painful circumstances can produce unexpected growth. The cross itself demonstrates that suffering and resurrection can exist within the same story.

Scripture: Genesis 2:9; Hebrews 12:2

6. Unreleased offenses can keep the past alive in the present.
Jim uses Charles Manson as an extreme example of what can happen when someone continually collects offenses and interprets everything through what has been done to them. The lesson is not to deny what happened, but to process it rather than allowing yesterday’s pain to dictate tomorrow’s behavior.

“When you keep collecting offenses, it makes you crazy after a while.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

7. Our thoughts matter, which makes intentional living both freeing and challenging.
Jim shares a message from Charles McFall responding to the statement, “Every thought I think is creating my future.”

“It is as freeing as it is terrifying. Living without intent is scary and it’s hard work to always be intentional.” — Charles McFall

Jim acknowledges the tension: we cannot simply turn off unwanted thoughts. The practical work is learning how to reframe them rather than repeatedly allowing painful memories or fearful projections to control the present.

Scripture: Romans 12:2; Philippians 4:8

8. Sometimes we need someone’s presence more than their advice.
Jim describes calling someone close to him during an intense week and deliberately not talking about what was troubling him. The conversation itself was enough. Sometimes healing energy comes through familiarity, connection, a trusted voice, or someone simply saying, “It’s going to be okay.”

Scripture: Proverbs 17:17; Galatians 6:2

9. A healing word isn’t always a comfortable word.
Like medicine, something can hurt while ultimately helping us. Someone who genuinely loves us may tell us something we do not want to hear. Healthy relationships create enough safety for truth, vulnerability, correction, and growth.

“A healing word sometimes is an uncomfortable word. It’s a challenging word.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

Scripture: Proverbs 27:6; Ephesians 4:15

10. Relationships are worth maintaining because we need connection.
One of the strongest conclusions of the message is that independence should not become isolation. Keeping relational “airwaves clear,” releasing unnecessary offenses, communicating honestly, and understanding how different people connect can become part of our own healing.

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:9–12; 1 Corinthians 12:20–21

You cannot control every thought that enters your mind, every painful memory, every difficult circumstance, or every unknown in your future. But you can change the framework through which you interpret them. Instead of repeatedly wounding yourself with yesterday, you can extract whatever truth is useful, release what belongs to someone else, and remain open to the people whose presence brings healing into your life.

“Hang on and keep staying open and get outside of yourself and let people speak into your life and nourish and nurture your relationships, because you never know when you’re going to need that person.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

Bishop Jim Swilley begins a new Metron series exploring prayer, healing, intention, energy, and the power of human connection. Rather than presenting prayer simply as something directed vertically toward a distant God, Jim considers the deeply horizontal nature of prayer—the energy, compassion, words, touch, encouragement, and intention that human beings transmit to one another. Through Scripture and personal stories ranging from hospital rooms and Ken’s recovery to a remarkable encounter with a Muslim man in Nigeria, Jim argues that healing transcends religious terminology. Whether someone says, “I’m praying for you,” “I’m sending healing energy,” or simply, “I’m thinking about you,” the important thing is the loving intention behind the words. Sometimes the healing word is not a dramatic prayer at all. Sometimes it is simply letting another person know: I see you. I’m thinking about you. You are not alone.

“Prayer and healing isn’t about doctrine. It’s about human connection.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

Another line captures the practical heart of the entire message:

“If somebody’s on your heart and on your mind, let them know. Send a word to them.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

Bishop Jim’s insightful messages help others find THEIR METRON through M~otivation E~nlightenment T~ranscendence R~enewal O~utreach and N~etworking

Learn more: www.bishinthenow.com

Follow Jim Swilley on Youtube to see the videos live Sundays at 11:11 am – https://www.youtube.com/bishinthenow

In this concluding message of The Spirit of Spontaneity series, Bishop Jim Swilley challenges listeners to embrace every part of their journey instead of rejecting the people, beliefs, mistakes, and experiences that shaped them. Using personal stories—including the anniversary of his consecration, the “Zephyr” encounter, and reflections on Romans 10—he explains that spiritual growth comes from remaining open to fresh revelation rather than being imprisoned by old interpretations. The message culminates in a powerful reexamination of Romans 10:9-10, presenting salvation not primarily as a future destination but as an awakening to the Christ already present within us, expressed through the words we speak and the life we live.

“Don’t run from your past. Don’t forget your past. Love your crazy family. Love your imperfect parents… You can’t embrace your ‘I Am-ness’ until you embrace everything that brought you here.” — Bishop Jim Swilley

The Spirit of Spontaneity isn’t about living without direction—it’s about remaining flexible enough to receive fresh revelation. When we stop fighting our past, stop clinging to outdated interpretations, and begin speaking from the Christ who is already present within us, we discover that salvation is something we experience every day. The journey itself becomes sacred because every step has led us to the grace, freedom, and awareness available in the present moment.