Try the Uplook!

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Theology

—October of 1995

Try the Uplook!

A young boy in the neighborhood lost his father last winter.  This spring as father-and-son teams hit the front yards to pitch and hit the baseball, he felt alone.  Not to be outdone, however, he took his bat and ball to the old familiar spot in the front yard and started his own game.  With a chipper spirit he threw the ball into the air and swung with all his might.  The bat cut only air, and a watching neighbor boy yelled, “Strike one!”  The lad hastily retrieved the ball threw it into the air and swung again.  “Strike two!” echoed from across the way.  With a tinge of fear and a ton of resolve, he flipped the ball for the final swing.  “Strike, three, you’re out!” screamed the unwanted umpire, along with the cruel words, “You’re a lousy hitter!”  The undaunted boy sucked up his chest, marched over to the fence and yelled back, “I’m not a lousy hitter; I’m a great pitcher! I just struck myself out!”

This young man displayed a great attitude and enthusiasm toward life.  He obviously had learned well that attitude can make all the difference.

Authentic Christianity has been characterized by an enthusiastic attitude.  Paul, awaiting martyrdom in a Roman cell, wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Phil. 4:4).  When Peter was placed in Herod’s prison to await his death, the Scripture tells us that the very night before his planned martyrdom, Peter lay down between two soldiers and slept.  No whining or the wringing of hands in misery!  He just slept.  He looked Herod’s sword in the face with perfect peace and went sound asleep.

When we focus on ourselves what we see can be very discouraging.  When we look at the world around us, we can be over-whelmed by its problems.  But when we look to Christ we always come away with hope.

The secret of an enthusiastic spirit is in understanding the sovereignty of God.  Joseph looked up from the long years of separation from family years of prison and slavery, and saw that though others “meant it for evil, God meant it for good.”  Had Joseph just chosen to look at things horizontally he could have walked away a sour, bitter man.  But because he chose to look at things vertically, he went through the dark years of his life and came out a man with the right perspective and a good attitude.

A failure to trace the divine purpose of God in our trials will make room for a negative critical spirit toward what has happened to us.  Jacob fell prey to such bitterness over the tragedy of Joseph.  “All these things be against me,” he wailed when God was simply planning the preservation of his own life and that of his family.

When I was a small boy I would follow the steps of my father as he plowed a long furrow through the field.  I was amazed how he was able to make the rows so straight.  The secret, he told me, was to find a fixed object at the end of the row and keep an upward look toward that object rather than constantly looking down at where you were walking.  This has proven to be good advice for living.  The man who buries his gaze in the temporal troubles of time will lose his perspective on life and ultimately lose his way.  He will become so problem-conscious that he loses his God consciousness.

We certainly are no match for the situations of life, but God is!   For every need we have, there is a corresponding fullness found in Him.  God is sufficient!

Can you feel the spirit of optimism when Paul looks up and taps into the divine resources as he speaks to us in Romans 8:31, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”  He looked up again and said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

The key to tapping into the sovereignty and sufficiency of God is not through the popular self-help teaching, but through real surrender and submission.  We are flooded with articles and books on “four easy steps” to spiritual happiness.  The real formula, however, is not “help yourself,” but “yield yourself.”  As we yield ourselves to Christ, we open our eyes to the sovereign ways of God and avail ourselves of supernatural strength.

Negativism, unbelief and despair are spiritual viruses that have lethal consequences to the soul.  They are contagious and will leave death in their wake.  On the other hand, a positive confident attitude, born out of looking unto Jesus, will help dispel the demons of despair and usher in an optimistic, confident trust – a trust that will straighten our shoulders, lift our heads, and make us far more effective Christians.

So remember! If the outlook is bleak, try the uplook!

The Values War

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Culture, Education

—September of 1995

The Values War

Cal Thomas had just finished giving a lecture at the University of Michigan when a student strongly objected to his thesis that our nation needs to promote values rooted in fixed absolutes.  Thomas responded, “If you reject my value system, what do you recommend to replace it?”  The young lady couldn’t answer.  Thomas pressed further by asking, “What is your major?”  “I am a senior, and my major is ethics.”  “On what do you base your own ethics?” Thomas posed.  “I don’t know, and I’m still trying to work that out.”

Here is a typical American student who has spent sixteen years in public education at the cost of $100,000 only to be left unable to think.  She had been given no moral foundation for right or wrong.  She had been stripped of a belief in the Bible and even taught an antagonism toward values founded on Scripture.  Her moral compass had been completely destroyed.  Consequently, she had no way of finding true north in a moral sense.

This young person, like thousands of others, was left to operate in an ethical and moral wasteland as a result of her training in America’s educational institutions.  The educational elite of these schools have deliberately eroded traditional education rooted in 2,000 years of Western civilization and undergirded by Judeo-Christian ethics.  They have spent the last forty years on a determined campaign to secularize our society through its young people.  They have established and politicized curricula centered in multiculturalism and held up by subjective standards void of moral absolutes.  A common core of knowledge has been replaced by a smorgasbord of relativism.  These graduates are then thrust into America’s marketplace and expected to do what is right.  However, the daily news echoes shocks and horror, bombings, fraud, incest, murder, and “wickedness in high places.”

Should we really be shocked by an Oklahoma bombing?  Should we shake our head in disbelief when mothers drown their children, and when fraud and deceit are daily occurrences in public life?  When incest, adultery and divorce come home to haunt us?  What else should we expect when we strip the moral values out of our educational system?  C.S. Lewis expressed it this way, “We laugh at honor and then are shocked to find traitors in our midst.  We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”  Has the “dumbing down” of America affected even us to the point that we honestly believe we can place our youth under the influence of today’s public educators and have them still committed to the values and traditions that we hold dear?

The most serious war being fought today is the war of values.  The church and our nation cannot afford to lose.  Our survival as a country as well as Western civilization hangs on the outcome.  The end result will determine whether it is a revival of religion we seek or whether we must start over and evangelize a heathen country.  I am praying for and promoting revival.  I believe God is beckoning to us through His Word for such a revival.  I believe God is beckoning to us through His Word for such a revival.  However, ears that are morally deaf cannot hear the message of revival but must be evangelized by the Gospel.

The Bible college is now on the front line of this struggle.  The role that we play will have an important part in the outcome.  Unfortunately, many have capitulated and are serving up the same secularistic menu that has left thousands of others void of moral nourishment.  We must embrace with renewed conviction our belief that education based on biblical truth is the only true education, and that this education must assist us in acquiring virtuous habits and ridding ourselves of nonvirtuous ones.  We must take from the center stage the question, “How shall I make a living?” and place there the question, “How shall I live?”  Our success in graduating a core of students who embrace the moral truths of God’s Word and whose lives possess a discipline and self-restraint will determine the future of our precious church and country.  The outcome of today’s values war will determine whether we pray for God to send us revival or pray for God to send us missionaries.

The Grace of Gratitude

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Theology

—November of 1995

The Grace of Gratitude

According to a medieval legend, two angels were once sent down to earth, one to gather up petitions and the other to collect thanksgivings.  The first angel found petitions everywhere.  He soon returned to heaven with a huge load of them on his back and a bundle in each hand.  The second angel had no such easy time.  He had to search diligently to find even a mere handful to take back to heaven.

Admittedly, legends can be farfetched and unrealistic or they can be painfully accurate.  This one, however, is much too accurate for comfort.  We would all have to admit that the high stakes scramble for more of this world’s goods has robbed the church of her voice of thanksgiving.  Our long period of materialistic comfort has made us easy in Zion and unaccustomed to the exercise of humble gratitude.

The Apostle Paul knew the importance of gratitude to the Christian as well as the subtle danger of ingratitude.  Listen to the music of gratitude that plays through his epistle to the Colossians:

Chapter one, verse 3: “We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus.”

Chapter one, verse 12: “…giving thanks unto the Father.”

Chapter two, verse 7: “…abounding…with thanksgiving.”

Chapter three, verse 17: “…giving thanks unto God and the Father by Him.”

Chapter four, verse 17: “Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”

Paul’s hymnody of thanks seems to center in chapter three, verse 15 when he says, “and be ye thankful.”

Paul’s strong imperative to “wear a garment of gratitude” is anchored to three firm convictions in the Apostle’s life.

Paul saw gratitude as a required grace.  Not a luxury but a necessity, not an option but a conviction.  Paul placed it among the required rather than the elective classes in the school of Christian experience.  I have a debt to be grateful!

I owe it to God to be grateful.  He has given me life, eternal life and the opportunity to do something with it.

I owe it to others to be grateful.  A sour, complaining spirit spreads gloom.  However, a joyful, cheerful spirit brings sunshine and smiles wherever it goes.

I owe it to myself.  Your physician will tell you that a mean, bitter, thankless spirit harms our health and robs us of life.  But of greater concern is what ingratitude does to us spiritually.  Of the thirteen plagues that came upon the children of Israel in their wilderness journey, eleven of those were punishment for murmuring against God.  In Romans chapter one, Paul charts the awful journey from godliness to godlessness.  He says in verse 21 that part of the root cause for such deviation is a spirit of ingratitude, “neither were they thankful.”

Gratitude is also a ripening grace.  A more literal translation of Paul’s words would be, “and become ye thankful.”   We must seek the grace of gratitude and cultivate the grace of gratitude until we are “abounding with thanksgiving.”  This is not an easy task.  None will ever overflow with thanksgiving until they see that gratitude is an inner disposition towards life that must be worked at.  Life has its mix of good and bad—of the difficult and the delightful; but it’s up to us as to how we respond to that mix.  Some people in examining a bush unhappily see only the thorns; others rejoice in the fragrance of its roses.  The lens through which we view life is so important.  Jacob saw his days as “few and evil.”  He described the loss of Joseph and the famine that reunited them with these words, “all these things be against me.”  However, Joseph looked at life through the lens of gratitude and described the same time period with a different set of words completely.  Joseph said, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”  We see exactly what we discipline ourselves to see in life, and looking through the lens of thanksgiving will ripen us.

It is often said among Christians that our reward is in the world to come.  However, gratitude is a rewarding grace.  It has its own reward for us right now.

Gratitude exalts God.  Very few things honor and glorify God more than the sweet fragrance of a thankful soul.  It expels gloom and ushers in sweet peace and blessed hope.  More than once the child of God has used thanksgiving to drive back the clouds of sorrow and gloom.  Gratitude encourages graciousness.  It gives us the politeness of soul and graciousness of spirit that can’t be purchased for any amount of money.

Let’s declare war on whimpering and complaining!  Let’s put away from us forever the grumbling and fault-finding that is such a blight on the church today!  Reach into the closet of God’s grace and adorn yourself with the garment of gratitude!  It will make a difference!

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!