Category: All Articles

God Wants His Job Back!

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

—February of 2011

God Wants His Job Back!

In our recent Missionary Convention, guest speaker Otto Koning spoke passionately about the importance of relying completely on God’s Spirit to accomplish the work He has called us to do.  He gave numerous personal illustrations (including the famous pineapple story) demonstrating the futility of trying to do spiritual work through mere human ingenuity.  He closed with this lamentation, “God wants His job back.”

No one would ever admit to wanting God’s job much less taking it! But every time we make decisions that marginalize His involvement; every time we allow political considerations to silence the voice of Biblical principle; every time we let self-interest edge out kingdom priorities; every time we turn to secular institutions to change what can only be changed by grace, we are in effect telling God that we can run things more effectively than He.

 This is not to say that human involvement is insignificant to God’s work. To the contrary, God has chosen to save the world through the foolishness of preaching—man’s involvement is not only crucial but central to the spread of the gospel.  Yet the proper balance between human energy and divine grace is sometimes difficult to find.  One of the reasons for having the book of Acts in Holy Scripture is to provide a vivid illustration of what this tension looks like.  It actually gives us a front row seat to witness how this cooperation between the human and the divine plays out.  The opening verses of the book tell the reader that what unfolds in the following pages is the continued work of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.  However, what one witnesses is an amazing group of very human yet remarkable characters whose personality strengths, human gifts and personal intelligence are utilized completely by the Holy Spirit for the advancement of God’s church.  Peter, the one time denier, holds the church together by his unshakable testimony and leadership. An unlearned, unlettered deacon named Stephen mystifies the Doctors of the Law in a spellbinding sermon that precipitates his being stoned to death. The remainder of the book highlights the ministry of the Apostle Paul.  A ministry that entails the most amazing missionary journeys the world has ever witnessed.  On every page it is evident that God is using human hands and feet to accomplish His work.  But it is also equally clear that those same hands and feet are filled and directed by the Holy Spirit.

How is this Balance lost?

 I believe this loss of balance happens when in our zeal to see God’s work advance we become willing to rely solely on human wisdom, secular institutions, religious denominations or political activism as the catalyst for change or advancement.  These are short cuts that will often give the appearance of success but will in the long run fail to bring about lasting change. Christians and churches alike often turn to everything from marketing strategies to politics for the cultural and spiritual changes that actually can only come by grace.  How often have you heard a pastor or a politician make the statement that the only way to effect cultural change is to send the right man to Washington?  This is the false notion that change comes from the top down.  The truth is that there must be a change in the spiritual culture at the grassroots level before anything can happen on the national level.  The Wesleyan Revival plowed the ground and planted the seed for social reform in England at the grassroots level long before William Wilberforce (who was transformed by that same revival) was able to pass legislation changing the slavery laws of the nation. Churches that affect lasting change are churches that are joining hands with God’s Spirit to effect spiritual and cultural change at the grassroots level of life – one man, one woman, one family at a time!

How does God get His job back?

God gets His job back when the Church recognizes that it is God alone who can effect deep and lasting change in both the hearts of men and the moral fabric of a culture.  His divine management is re-established when we surrender to His full control and learn how to faithfully walk under the direction of His Spirit; when we honor His Word through prompt and careful obedience; when we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” and really mean it.  God has His job back when we finally grasp that spiritual success is finding out what He is doing and then linking our hands with His to make it happen!

The Gift of Hope!

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Holiday

The Gift of Hope!

One Christmas Eve over a century ago, an American Episcopal minister was riding horseback across the Judean hills in Palestine.  He stopped his horse at a hillside clearing near the very place where shepherds “watched their flocks by night” so long ago.  Reverently he surveyed his surroundings.  Above him flickered the same stars that looked down upon the new-born Christ-child centuries earlier; below him, sleeping in the darkness, were the narrow streets of the village of Bethlehem.

Though the air that night was cold, the heart of the notable preacher was warmed as he worshiped in his outdoor sanctuary.  The scene so transfixed itself upon his mind that upon returning to America, Rev. Phillips Brooks captured the panoramic wonder of that evening in the words of a poem which he later gave to his church organist, Lewis Redner, who set the verses to music.  You will recognize the familiar carol:

O little down of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

Then Brooks penned this astounding, but time-honored evaluation:

Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight!

What an incredible expression of optimism!  The hopes and fears of all the years find their fulfillment and resolution in the Baby of Bethlehem!  Born in obscurity under inauspicious circumstances, this Child would be hailed as the Savior of the world; the Conqueror of death, hell, and the grave; the Prince of Peace and the King of Kings!  What an antidote for a restless and chaotic world!

As this article goes to press, our nation is in a war to root out the perpetrators of terrorism.  Here in our Homeland, many live under the fear of another terror attack that will shatter the peace and bring grief to many homes.  Joblessness has robbed the happiness of millions as economic uncertainly stalks the land.  But above the noise, confusion and economic turmoil of our world, as hope and fear continue to battle within the hearts of men, it is fitting that we conclude this year by quietly reflecting upon the coming of One who fulfills every hope and calms every fear!  The confidence of the Christian must remain today where it has always been — in the birth, life, death, resurrection and soon return of the Baby of Bethlehem who is now the King of Glory; for therein, and only therein, is every hope fulfilled and every fear resolved!

“By This Shall All Men Know . . .”

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–November of 2010

“By This Shall All Men Know…”

God has the most remarkable way of placing little object lessons in our path to remind us of the things that are most important.  He has them the tucked away in the most unlikely places just waiting for the right moment to spring them. This happened to me recently while standing at the back door of a church where I had just finished preaching the final service of a revival meeting.  The church is a growing congregation of good folks from a primarily rural area.   They have a number of exciting ministries one of which is a ministry to adults with various challenges.  The church provides this group with their own special Sunday school class and in turn the group participates faithfully in the worship services – usually sitting right up front.

One of the ladies in the group, Robin, has Down Syndrome.  Robin lives with one of the church families where she has received loving care for over 26 years.  Robin is known for her exceptionally mild disposition and loving manner.  She loves the animals on the farm and has spent the entire day in the barn just petting the goats.  Once when a baby deer happened along, Robin’s caregiver saw her standing in the back yard with the little deer – each enjoying the others company.

As I stood at the back door shaking hands and sharing good-byes, Robin and her family joined the line that was winding its way passed me and out the door.  One of the family members whispered to Robin, “Why don’t you give him a hug” and pointed to someone standing right behind me.  Robin thought they meant me and pushed her way through the crowd, laid her head on my arm and began to pat my hand.  This continued for sometime.  It was one of the most pure expressions of love I had ever received from a complete stranger.

A few days later, early one morning as I was praying, I thought of this incident.  As I thought about Robin’s unashamed display of unconditional love, I paused in my prayer and asked the Lord, “ Father, did you make a special group of people just to show us what unconditional love looks like?”  To which He gently replied, “Yes, son I did.  They are called Christians!”

The Quiet Place

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–September of 2010

The Quiet Place

Read Mark 1:21-45

In the very heart of a narrative loaded with action —healing people, casting out devils, responding to impatient disciples, traveling from town to town and preaching from synagogue to synagogue—we find these remarkably quiet words about Jesus, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”  The more one  reads this nearly silent sentence locked in between the loud words of action, the more one has the sense that the secret of Jesus’ ministry is found in that place of solitude…. where he went to pray….early before dawn.  A further look at the Gospels will reveal that Jesus actually made these retreats into a “desert place” a regular part of His life.

I think it is a fair question to ask ourselves, why did Jesus need this quiet time?  Henri Nouwen suggests that the immediate context shows that it was in this quiet place that Jesus found the courage to follow God’s will and not his own – to speak God’s words and not His own—to do God’s work and not his own – to live in God’s strength and not His own.

If Nouwen is right, and I believe he is, then the quiet place becomes preeminently important for every follower of Jesus. If the Son of God needed these times of solitude it is obvious that we need them as well!  In evaluating what these quiet times did for Jesus, we can learn why they are so valuable to every disciple as well.

It’s was in the quiet place that Jesus found and maintained His perspective on what was really important to His Heavenly Father.

Go back to the passage and envision what the scene in Capernaum must have been like. Word had spread rapidly about Jesus’ power to heal and the streets were lined with the sick, handicapped, demon possessed, mentally retarded as well as the spiritually needy.   The disciples were frantically looking for Jesus to inform Him that, “everyone is looking for you.”  But Jesus had just emerged from the quite place and He already knew that His business for the day was preaching in other villages.  So He walks away from the desperately needy crowds at Capernaum because He knows that the Father’s will for Him lies elsewhere. I can imagine what the disciples said among themselves.  “Look how the people are flocking to Him.  He had a chance to make a real difference, but no, He leaves it all behind and goes off preaching in some other remote place that hasn’t even heard of Him.” But Jesus could easily submit to the Father’s will and plan because he had been in the quiet place!

It is not wrong to have a strong desire to accomplish something for God.  We feel called to do something—to make a difference.  But the problem comes when we make the results of our work the criteria for our value.  And when that happens it skews our perspective on life.     It was out of solitude that Jesus found that doing is not the same as being and that following the will of God and pleasing the heavenly Father is not defined by the world’s concept of success.

It is out of the quiet place that we discover that our obedience is more important to God than the result of all our efforts. It is out of the quiet place that we come to understand that the love we express and the work we do is part of a greater love and greater work that is being done by God Himself. It is out of the quiet place that we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness and that what we see accomplished is only because of what He chooses to do in and through us.

It is only in the quiet place that we can find the power to do work that is marked by divine love.

Ministry without love is cold and sterile. Jesus never interacted with men and women without being “moved with compassion.”  The first person He meets after leaving his quiet place was a leper begging to be made clean.  Of course Jesus was willing to heal him but not until he had first touched his leprous brow!  Why? Jesus need only speak for the healing to happen but divine love could only communicated through His touch.

Unless there is a quiet place in our lives then our work for God will be marked by duty rather than by love. It is only in the quiet place that our lives are saturated with divine love

It’s amazing to me that even though our Heavenly Father knows that the quiet place is the key to successful ministry, He still lets us make the choice as to whether or not we go there.  But  those who go there by choice and by habit will find what  Nouwen said Jesus found, “ the courage to follow God’s will and not our own – to speak God’s words and not our own—to do God’s work and not our own – to live in God’s strength and not our own.”

A Bishop’s Bad Theology

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Theology

–May of 2010

A Bishop’s Bad Theology

I recently had the privilege to speak at a minister’s conference in India.  While there I had the opportunity to meet with the bishop of the Evangelical Church of India.  Since the ECI is the product of the American Holiness Movement, I asked the bishop about his denomination’s commitment to historical holiness doctrine.  He gave me a rather scornful look and said, “Oh, it’s still in our doctrinal statement, but holiness is not my concern!  My concern is evangelizing and planting churches!”

The old bishop told me much with the tilt of his head, the tone of his voice, and the dismissive wave of his hand as he uttered those two simple sentences.  I understand enough about leadership to know that when a leader “leans” into something with passion it generally happens.  I also know that when he ignores or downplays something it will generally be forgotten.  This behavior becomes the “working theology” of the leader; and unfortunately for the old bishop, his is neither biblical nor Wesleyan.

His first mistake is a failure to understand that the Great Commission equally embraces both conversion and discipleship.  When church leaders or pastors promote evangelism and neglect discipleship (the teaching of biblical doctrine), they put the church on a growth plane that is a mile wide and an inch deep.  How could anyone claim to be discipling and yet ignore the primary call of scripture to holy living?

Frankly, true evangelism cannot even exist in a doctrinal vacuum.  One cannot have an experience with Jesus Christ apart from what Christ has revealed about Himself in the Bible.  Romans chapter 10 tells us that people need sound Biblical information before they can be saved.  One can certainly join a church and even have a religious experience without any Biblical teaching, but one cannot have a true conversion experience without some knowledge of the gospel.  Paul clearly attributes the radical change that took place in the lives of the Roman Christians to the doctrine they were taught.  “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you” (Rom. 6:17).

Furthermore, sound doctrine is essential to spiritual formation.  Converts without a root quickly wither and die.  To view doctrinal teaching as a hindrance—a boundary or a divider—s to fail to understand even remotely the importance of theological thought on the spiritual life of a believer.  In reality sound theology is the map that enables us to put the pieces together for a full understanding of biblical truth, which in turn opens the door to subsequent growth.  The hard work of doctrinal instruction is not to make “smart” Christians, but “faithful” Christians!  “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee”(1 Tim. 4:16).  You will never have solid spiritual formation outside the context of sound doctrinal instruction.

The second mistake is that the bishop doesn’t understand the theological consequences of his words or his emphasis.  He makes holiness sound like extra baggage that ought to be, or at least can be, left aside.  Sort of a “tack-on” that can come later after the important work of saving souls is done.  Sadly he doesn’t understand the centrality of holiness to the whole process of redemption.  The desire to be holy is implanted in the hearts of all born-again believers.  They immediately manifest a desire to live a new kind of life.  They become sensitive to sin both in themselves and in their environment.  They long to live a life that is pleasing to God, even though they may not understand fully how to do it.

From a doctrinal perspective, the bishop is actually throwing out his Wesleyan theology and unwittingly embracing a version of Reformed theology.  Reformed theologians disconnect justification and sanctification.  To them justification is merely forensic and doesn’t affect any real change.  It only affects our standing with God.  Sanctification happens later in a slow process or maybe not even until death.  In this theological scheme real holiness simply takes a back seat.  Wesleyans, however, believe that sanctification begins in justification.  The work of regeneration or initial sanctification starts the process of making us into the image of Christ.  John Wesley said, “God justifies no one whom He does not also sanctify.  The work of sanctification begins at justification.  It begins the moment we are justified…It gradually increases from that moment…till, in another instant, the heart is cleansed from all sin, and filled with pure love to God and man.”

To reduce conversion to a simple transaction that has no commitment to faithful discipleship, no hunger for holiness, and no real personal change is effectively to sell the gospel short.  To make holiness an aggravating addendum that can be left out or tacked on later is to abandon a holiness witness and to sell out the gospel.  I may not be a bishop, but I know better than this!