Tag: Christian Living

Articles I have written specifically dealing with areas of Christian living.

Knowing God

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

–October of 2001

Knowing God

To the average man in America God is an inference, not a reality.  He has put belief in the Almighty into the back of his mind along with the other various odds and ends that make up his philosophy of life.  The possibility of an intimate acquaintance with God has never entered his thinking.

Christians, to be sure, go further than this.  God is more than brain deep.  To them He is life deep.  The Bible makes it perfectly clear that God is personal and can be known in personal experience.  Leaping out from almost every page of Scripture is a God who affects us and is affected by us.  The Old Testament gives us portraits of God speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive such manifestation.  We see Him walking with Adam and Eve in the Garden, eating with Abraham by his tent, and arguing with Moses on a mountain top.  The gospels give us a front-row seat as God steps from behind the curtain onto the stage of life to interact with man.  The Bible assumes it to be self-evident that we can know God intimately.

Within the holiness tradition, we are regularly summoned to know God, to talk to God and to love God as one loves a friend.  Yet, to many, the idea of being intimate with God is still mystical and illusive.  Their knowledge of God is more accidental than intentional—more like an occasional contact than an ongoing companionship.  When talking about God they use the textbook language of a learner rather than the transparent language of a lover.  They remind me of a story the Boston Globe carried about an Elvis Presley look-alike contest.  One contestant had this to say, “Elvis was my idol.  I have seen his concerts, watched every movie he has done, bought every album he made, collected ticket stubs and clippings from programs all around the world, had my hair styled like his, and won many look alike contests.  I’ve stormed the stage at his concerts so that he would see me, and I’ve climbed the walls at Graceland to catch a glimpse of him.  It’s really funny, though.  All the effort I put into following him…and I could never seem to get close.”

Why do so many Christians find it difficult to get close to God?  I believe, for the most part, it is the same reason we find it difficult being intimate with one another.  One of the more significant barriers to any relationship is self-centeredness.  The sinful self seeks independence from both God and man.  It is self-seeking rather than self-giving.  No relationship can find true intimacy unless there is a giving of oneself freely to the other.

Another barrier is superficiality.  Our image-conscious culture holds others at enough distance to prevent the development of close relationships.  To allow people to get close means that they will see me as I really am.  We struggle with this kind of openness.  Honesty about ourselves makes us vulnerable.  Being vulnerable is often too threatening to our self image and security.  When this is carried over into our Christian walk, we keep God at a distance.  We fear exposing our inner self to Him.  We talk to Him in clichés rather than pouring out our heart in true transparency.  But the more we mask our true self and hide from God and others, the more distant our relationships become.

A final hindrance is time.  Children spell love “T-I-M-E” and so does God.  Most relationships I know are starving for a lack of time.  Our Western culture has forgotten how to walk.  We know only how to run and drive.  We pack our days so full that time to build meaningful relationships is all but impossible.  Our relationship to God has to be “crock-potted” not microwaved!  The salvation of our soul may be the miracle of a moment but the making of an intimate relationship with God is the work of a lifetime.

God wants to tear down every barrier and walk with us in intimate fellowship.  Scripture tells us if we will, “draw nigh to God, He will draw nigh to us.”  That’s not just a possibility, but a promise.  There is no better time than the present to start “knowing God”.

Don’t Forget to Say “Thank You”

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–September of 2001

Don’t Forget to Say “Thank You”

He was sitting in his garage watching cars go by, nodding and daydreaming of yesteryears.  My surprise visit startled him back to the present.  We shared greetings and took a little time to catch up on family news.  My 83 year old friend then walked me to his bedroom and showed me two of his most prized possessions.  The first was his lifetime subscription card to the God’s Revivalist.  The second was a plaque from his church thanking him for his many years of service.  My friend beamed with joy.  He felt appreciated.  Somebody had taken the time to say thank you.

As I have advanced in years, my realization has grown of the importance of expressing verbally and in other tangible ways my appreciation for the contribution that men and women have made to life.  My first valuable lesson came as a result of the H. E. Schmul Banquet.  We invited hundreds of people to our campus to celebrate the life and legacy of this great man.  I watched Brother Schmul bask in the accolades given him by one leader after another.  Plaques were presented, letters were read and a proclamation from the Governor was presented.  Brother Schmul was still radiating in the warmth of those accolades the next day!  It was a beautiful moment!

Banquets to celebrate life should not be limited to the high profile saints with very visible ministries.  There are thousands of faithful men and women in our denominations, local churches, mission organizations and Christian day schools who have given years of faithful, sacrificial service who deserve a word of thanks.  Why not have a party and celebrate their life and labors?  Let them know they are appreciated!

If you’re a son or a daughter with a parent that has reached an advanced age, have a celebration.  Write a letter of gratitude and read it to them.  Yes, you’ll cry and they will too, but do it anyway.  They will treasure that letter more than a million dollars worth of gift cards.  They will read it and re-read it many times over.  It will be their sunshine on many a dark and cloudy day.

Church, have a “Pastor Appreciation Day”.  Pastor, find those senior saints in your church and honor them.  Have a “Grandpa Jones Day” or a “Bertha Smith Day” and let both young and old extol their virtues.  No, they didn’t go to dark Africa, but they did stay true to the home church.  They paid the bills, never missed prayer meeting, taught Sunday school and faithfully cleaned the church when the preaching was good and when the preaching was bad.  Celebrate their faithfulness.

God despises any lack of gratitude.  Eleven of the thirteen plagues that troubled the traveling children of Israel came upon them for their ungrateful grumbling.  The reprobates of Romans 1 began the first chapter of their degeneration with these words, “neither were they thankful.”  On the more positive side, God is planning an indescribable celebration and a rewards banquet for His children when this life is over.  Why not get a head start and spread a little cheer now!

Don’t be stopped by the false humility that says, “I don’t want anyone making over me now; my reward is to come.”  Don’t miss the opportunity all around you to make someone’s day.  Don’t forget to say “thank you” in a meaningful way.  The time will come all too soon when the opportunity will no longer be with you.

Recommitting to the Great Commission

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Church, Ministry

–April of 2001

Recommitting to the Great Commission

Standing before the open door of this new millennium, the church has never faced so many challenges on so many different fronts.  Rather than moving forward as salt and light, our response has been paralyzed by uncertainty and fear.  It has been easier for the church to look inward toward developing inner piety than to look outward with the intent of sharing our faith with the world.  However, it is from this inward focus that the Holy Spirit faithfully seeks to turn the church.  Those He turns will become the missionaries of this our present day

Emerging Trends

What should the church expect to confront?  The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has projected four major challenges or trends for the church in the 21st century.

1. Massive urbanization.  This century opens with a population of approximately six billion people, half of whom live in large cities.  Half of that number is under 25 years of age.  The holiness church has become far too comfortable in suburbia and has in all reality lost touch with the inner city.  To fulfill our calling and remain relevant, we must reconnect and re-engage the population of the world’s great cities with the gospel.

2. Aggressive secularism.  Secularism has turned former Christian nations into post-Christian countries.  Its onslaught has affected the emerging nations of Southeast Asia, and economically strong countries like South Korea, where one Korean elder said, “Materialism is eating the heart out of Korea’s prayer life.”  Secularism roots God out for economic prosperity and so-called intellectualism.  These are two fronts the church must face with answers.

3. Expanding non-Christian religions.  The expansion of Westernize has created militant and aggressive propagation of non-Christian religions.  Hinduism and the Muslim religion are enjoying significant growth even in the United States.  Though these two religions are not typically evangelistic, they have become so, due to the influence of the western world and its threat to their way of life.  The church can no longer ignore these as Eastern problems, but must prepare to evangelize those who embrace Eastern religions on Western soil.

4. The rise and fall of new political ideologies.  The fall of communism almost caught the church unprepared to move through the opening in the iron curtain to evangelize a new frontier.  China or the Middle East could be next, or it is also possible that doors that are now open may quickly close.  The church must be sensitive to the Spirit and ready to move in either direction.

 Some Things Never Change

Though these and other challenges will always confront the church, some things will remain the same.  God has not changed, nor has the need of every human heart.  The gospel is still the answer to the deepest need in all of our lives, regardless of culture or political persuasion.  God has offered no other cure than the cross of Christ and its redemptive message.

The Great Commission hasn’t changed.  We are not commanded to understand all the challenges of tomorrow, but we are commanded to confront those challenges with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and do so in every corner of the world.

 Equipping for the Task

If the church of Jesus Christ is to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, then those of us in the church must move quickly to restore the primacy of evangelism and recommit ourselves to the Great Commission.  This issue of the Revivalist unveils part of the plan we are implementing here at GBS to renew our historic commitment to world evangelism with an emphasis that permeates every aspect of campus life.

Let me challenge you and your church to re-engaged in evangelism.  The effectiveness of the church lies in her faithfulness to the commission.  The “Spirit and the Bride say come…”

Let’s add our voices to the chorus and call men and women everywhere to repent and receive the Gospel.

What God Requires

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

–Winter of 2001

What God Requires

In every age there are those who aspire to an intimate relationship with a holy God and to live the godly life resulting from that relationship.  It is also true that in every age there are those who have constructed their own brand of cheap grace to insure a minimum demand upon their life.  Standing between these two categories is a veritable host asking the eternally important question, “What level of living does God require of His people?”

We know that salvation and acceptance with God comes by grace through faith.  Yet no serious Bible student can escape being jolted by the flat ultimatum to “be holy for I am holy.”  Nor can we overlook the command to pursue holiness, “without which no man shall see the Lord.”  The call to holy living is repeated in various ways throughout the whole of Scripture.  If God means what He says, then salvation by grace through faith has some serious behavioral ramifications.

The Old Testament sets the tone and standard for God’s expectation of His people.  A summation of the first few books of the Old Testament clearly teaches us that God’s goal for human life is that we should live in real fellowship with Him—a fellowship that requires a correct understanding of who He is and a sharing of His revealed character.  Four times in the book of Leviticus (often referred to as the “Holiness Code”) God tells His people that He is holy and, because that is so, they must be holy.  He is requiring a holiness of life that is not only relational (meaning, a holiness that is derived and dependent upon a right relationship with God), but one that is also replicational (meaning, a holiness that shares His character and is behavioral, touching every aspect of our personal, social, moral, civil and religious life).  This behavioral aspect is presented further when we are given an Old Testament description of true religion, “Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully, and with a perfect heart” (II Chron. 19:9).  Clearly God expects us to serve Him reverently with a life that is totally yielded and faithfully obedient to His revealed commands and statutes.

The New Testament standard is the same as the Old.  It teaches that we are redeemed from sinful bondage and brought into a relationship with God by saving grace.  This salvation is more than going to Heaven when we die.  It is an intimate personal progressive relationship with Christ.  It means that God radically and immediately re-orients our lives to the Lordship of Christ so that obedience to Him is a normal practice in our lives.  It means that He will also “purify our hearts by faith” through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, enabling the Holy Spirit to reproduce Christ’s character in us.  Although this is not done in our own strength, we are fully cooperative participants in this effort by the application of Biblical truths as we see new truth and by the exercise of certain disciplines that help maintain true piety in our lives.

Both Testaments call us to live lives that are morally pure, ethically righteous, and faithfully obedient.  This call to holy living is clear, and every Christian needs to take this call seriously.  Dr. John Oswalt in his book, The Call to Be Holy, makes the observation, “The fate of the American church and the church around the world depends upon what it does with the biblical doctrine of Christian holiness.”  Dr. Oswalt is right.  It is also right to note that my fate and yours depends upon what we do with the biblical call to holy living.  God requires holiness of heart and life.

A Monument to Christ’s Willingness to Answer Prayer

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

–Summer of 2000

A Monument to Christ’s Willingness to Answer Prayer

In the late 1800’s, Martin Wells Knapp, Methodist evangelist and founding editor of God’s Revivalist, felt that God was going to use him for more that just the publishing work in which he was then engaged. His diary entry for July 17, 1890, reads as follows:

A training school for gospel workers is on my heart and in my head. It seems as if God put it there. I agreed tonight that if He will give me the building for the Home, to use it for His glory and to put this or a similar statement on it: “This building is a monument of the power and willingness of the loving Christ to answer prayer.”

That prayer became a reality in 1900 when Knapp bought property at 1810 Young Street, Cincinnati. The red-brick mansion, which is still the administration center for GBS, was filled to capacity when classes began on September 27. Few if any could have envisioned what God would do on this campus in the century ahead. God’s Bible School and Missionary Training Home was to give life to a number of notable religious organizations, provide a home for the Revivalist Press, host one of the largest camp meetings in the Midwest, and send a steady line of courageous and dedicated graduates to so many places at home and abroad that the alumni motto would become “The Sun Never Sets on the Graduates of God’s Bible School.”

Throughout this century on the Hilltop, GBS and God’s Revivalist have been united in a happy marriage which has blessed the world. Knapp founded the periodical twelve years before the school and used the former to create the latter. Probably there would be no GBS without the Revivalist; and probably there would be no Revivalist now without GBS. Both are the result of Knapp’s genius and sacrifice, and both still bear his imprint. Together they have made the Mount of Blessings the vital holiness center which it has been and which it still remains. In God’s kindly providence, they will continue to do the same in the years before us.

It is therefore appropriate that this special commemorative issue for the GBS Centenary appear in the very pages which helped give birth to the school one hundred years ago. Obviously we have encapsulated the century past with only the briefest summary. We hope our readers will seek more exhaustive treatment in the two official histories now in preparation—one a rich pictorial presentation with accompanying verbal vignettes; and the other, a scholarly, interpretive narrative.

The history of this venerated institution has demonstrated that Knapp’s prayer has been answered again and again. After a century on its Mt. Auburn campus, God’s Bible School still remains a “monument of the power and willingness of the loving Christ to answer prayer.”