Tag: Christian Living

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

Trickle-Down Theology

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–May of 2000

Trickle-Down Theology

Pollsters of every sort are needling the church by claiming that Christians today are lying, cheating, stealing and committing fornication at the same rate as non Christians.  I am not sure whom these pollsters are surveying, but in the community of saints with which I am privileged to have fellowship, this would certainly not be the case.  The vast majority of the Christians I know could well be described in the words of Paul, “…if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Why then are the pollsters taunting us with such nonsense as Christian-liars and sensual-saints? That answer is not too difficult.  They simply expect the church to be different and are bitterly disappointed when they survey church-going people who are not!  My belief is that they are surveying mostly people who have only identified with the Church, but have never experienced the real, radical, transforming power of saving grace.  These people don’t have a clue as to how God’s grace can and will make a difference.  The pulpit voice they listen to is failing them.

What troubles me even more than this is the shallow, watery, weak-willed, entry-level commitment that has produced a community of saints who have ceased to talk about how God is impacting their lives through His Word.  Testimonies are silent about how God is altering the essence and expression of both the content and context of their lives through their daily contact with scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit. Very little is being said about how God is putting them in a narrow place to convict and conform them to the likeness of Christ.   I see this as the scourge and the curse of the church today. These warm-hearted souls who do know the saving grace of Jesus, who have ceased their sinning and going astray, have for some reason or the other failed to understand the extreme importance of allowing the Word of God to fill their minds and flow out of their lives.  They are not experiencing regular change and conformity to Christ through the power of the Word.  Their lives are almost totally barren of personal convictions, codes of conduct and moral values that flow out of the study and application of biblical principles.

The Lord Jesus told the church that she was to be salt to a world that has no seasoning and light to a world that is in terrible darkness.  Both of these are change agents and both bring a stark contrast to what is there.  We cannot change the world, nor make a profound moral influence on the society around us, if the principles of the Bible are not trickling down through our lives, formulating values, convictions and codes of behavior that visibility affect the way we live. The world expects and should expect to see a way of living that squares with scripture.

It is imperative that as Christians we allow what we know and believe to trickle down and transform the way we live our lives.  We have to get our theology out of the ivory towers of scholasticism.  It has to leave the four walls of our local church.  It has to go beyond pulpit pounding and Sunday School discussions.  We cannot live it in that secret place of daily devotion. It has to become an inseparable part of who we are.  It has to make its way into the market place, the factory and into the homes of our friends and neighbors that do not know Jesus.  If it does not, the Church collectively and the Christian individually will be as the salt that lost its savor and the light that was hidden under a basket.   We will have only a form of godliness that is empty of power.

One of the beautiful sights in northern Israel is snow-covered Mt. Hermon.  The snow that falls on the majestic head of Mt. Hermon melts and works its way down the crevices of that old mountain, forming streams, creeks, and rivers that empty into the Sea of Galilee.  From the Sea of Galilee, the country of Israel pumps millions of gallons of water as far away as the plains of Jordan around the Dead Sea.  The water transforms that barren wilderness into lush gardens filled with date palms, banana trees and beautiful flowers.  One could literally say that the snow that fell on Mt. Hermon grew an orchid near the shores of the Dead Sea.

The wonderful truths that are found in God’s Word should be working their way down through the soul of our being and out into our lives in such a way as to change the moral landscape all around us.  I believe good theology and real Christianity has a trickle-down effect.

A Serious Saintliness

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

–April of 2000

A Serious Saintliness

Henry Drummond, while preaching in chapel at Harvard many years ago, said, “Gentlemen, don’t touch Christianity unless you mean business.” Drummond’s voice seems very much out of vogue in modern day religion, but he was right on target then and now. The common admonition of our day is to “lighten up” and not take religion too seriously. J.I. Packer has compared the modern route in religion to something similar to the “hot tub experience.” “The hot tub experience,” says Packer, “is sensuous, relaxing, sloppy, laid back—not in any way demanding…but very, very nice, even to the point of being great fun.” Packer concludes that many today want Christianity to be just like that and take great pains to make it so.

Somehow a system of belief that culminated on a rugged cross has been reconfigured into a well-marketed program of “let us help you feel better about yourself and teach you how to enjoy life to the full.” This hedonistic spin on Christianity is in direct contradiction to what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. The yearning for happiness, rather than holiness, found so widely among Christians professing a superior degree of sanctity is sufficient proof that such sanctity doesn’t exist. John Wesley said of the members of one of the early Methodist societies, that he doubted that they had been made perfect in love because they came to church to enjoy religion instead of to learn how they could become holy.

Real saints are serious about real holiness. I don’t mean a couple of trips to an altar or the regular verbalization that “I’m sanctified.” I mean real sanctity. Holy people seek to be separate from all that stains their world or dirties their lives. They are free from all sinful thoughts, impure motives and questionable activities. Through the power of Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, they have found true inner goodness and authentic clean living.

A call to real sanctity needs to be taken up with great intensity in our day. All the praying, sacrificing and pleading with God will not bring revival until we take seriously the call to holiness. If we choose to fill our minds with pornography, violence, immorality, hatred, promiscuity and self centeredness and call it entertainment, then we can be certain that God will not hear our prayers. We cannot expect a divine visitation if we are unethical in business, corrupt in our speech and careless in our commitments. Let no one be fooled. True Christianity makes serious demands on out lives. It is impossible to have a heart in one condition and produce fruit of an opposite condition. A holy heart will affect our actions, just as our actions reflect our heart.

Saints are serious about obedience. The apostle said, “For this is the love of god, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” (1John 5:3) Someone has high rightly said that it is impossible for a man who loves God to say, “No, Lord,” because if Christ is truly our Lord, we cannot refuse him. Jesus said it this way in Luke 6:46, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” In the salvation process God radically and immediately reorients our lives to Christ so that He is truly Lord of our lives.

Saints are serious about servanthood. Paul reminds us again that “our life is not our own,” but it is “hid with Christ in God.” We are told that “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord.” It is only in the context of servanthood that our lives can become something beautiful for God and resourceful for others.

Richard Foster may have summed it up best when he said, “The desperate need today is not fro a great number of intelligent or gifted people, but the desperate need is for deep people.” Dr. Foster, I couldn’t agree with you more.

Radical Faith

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

–March of 2000

Radical Faith

When Martin Wells Knapp walked into the Hamilton County Courthouse in the summer of 1900 to record the deed to the newly-purchased property at 1810 Young Street, he told the clerk to record the deed in the name of “God the Father.”  Thus began the story of radical faith on the campus of God’s Bible School.

Radical isn’t a word that most conservative Christians are comfortable with.  Religiously, it conjures up images of wild-eyed fanatics flirting with the spiritual ragged edge.  Politically, it is connected to tree-hugging environmentalists, pro-abortionists, and other people who embrace far-left social issues.

At the turn of the century, it was a label given to differentiate between those who accepted the status quo of the mainline church and those who embraced a total dependence on God to meet all of their needs spiritually, financially, and physically while they gave themselves to the promotion of revival and world evangelism.  The term was dropped, about a half century later, as these groups started their descent into mainline respectability.  Interestingly enough, though, the term radical faith is surfacing again at the turn of this century by youth organizations and prominent evangelicals such as Chuck Colson.  It has been revived once again to distinguish between what God really wants and the status quo faith found in the average church.

Knapp and those associated with GBS in the first several decades defined Biblical faith as something radically different from what they saw in the mainline churches.  Knapp’s personal view of faith was affected by several different influences.  First, his strong conviction of what New Testament faith really required left him with the belief that most Christians have strayed too far from a New Testament or primitive faith (thus the school’s motto, “Back to the Bible”).  Secondly, he was influenced by the writings of Madame Guyon and George Mueller.  Third, he believed in a personal experience of physical healing.  Fourth, he rejoiced in a tremendous move of God among the revivalist groups of which he was a part.

Though Knapp lived only a year after he started GBS, his emphasis on total abandonment and complete trust in God affected decades of graduates.  In 1901, the Cowmans were led to go to Japan the “New Testament way,” that is with no promise of support.  G.C. Bevington came here as a student in 1902.  His colorful ministry later was compiled in the book, Remarkable Incidents and Modern Miracles through Prayer and Faith.  This same radical faith sent John F. Simpson to the Philippines, Lula Schmelzenbach to South Africa, Lillian Trasher to Egypt, Everett Phillippe to the Caribbeans, Wesley Duewel to India, and thousands of others to conquer impossible situations for God at home and abroad armed only with an unflinching faith in God, backed up by total commitment to His cause.

Oswald Chambers, who was here in the first decade, described the institution in these words: “It is a work run primarily on the faith line.”  Chambers was so impressed by this life of faith that he chose to start a school like it in England.

The modern ear doesn’t like the sound of radical faith.  The modern mind just can’t accept it.  We have developed such an impoverished view of God that our minds are no longer conditioned to expect God’s mighty intervention on our behalf.  We have put God in a box and become at ease with explaining why we shouldn’t step out on naked faith.  Those who choose to do so anyway are often stereotyped as simpletons and woefully ignorant of true spirituality.  I would readily acknowledge that there is a fine line between radical faith and foolishness, but I would also have to admit that there is a fine line between so called sensible faith and a faith so weakened by carnality that it can’t let go of self and trust God with everything.  The latter is so influenced by self that it rebels against the kind of interference God would need to make in our lives to see radical faith really operative.

Nevertheless, God is looking for men with radical faith.  When God needed a family through which to bring the Messiah, He chose a pagan from the region of Iraq; He revealed Himself to Abram, and called him to leave behind everything he knew and go to a place that he knew nothing about.  God promised to give him this new land and populate it with his descendants who would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Yet, for the next 25 years Abraham had to share that promise with a barren wife, moving about as a pilgrim on land in which he never owned more than a gravesite.  Despite the circumstances, Abraham believed God; and God responded to Abraham’s faith and brought every word of His promise to pass.

Job is another example of God’s interest in faith.  Job represents the ultimate in righteous living.  He was God’s first choice to prove to Satan that a man’s faith can be genuine and selfless, not dependent on health or wealth.  Job had to replay the original test of the Garden of Eden with the bar raised a good deal higher.  This man from Uz came through with flying colors and proved that radical faith can see God’s trustworthiness even in the dark.

I see evidences that the faith of our fathers is resurfacing boldly in a new generation—a generation much like the one a century ago that felt the need to live out a faith more daring than that of the average Christian around them.  Though we may not like the term, may God bless this generation with the works that flow from a life of radical faith.

A Heritage of Spiritual Reality

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–November of 1999

A Heritage of Spiritual Reality

I recently enjoyed a wonderful afternoon visit with my good friends Murl and Dorothy Patterson. At 88, Brother Patterson is still strong, active and very proud of his family’s heritage. His grandparents came to this country from Germany and finally put their roots down in Nebraska, settling a short distance south of the Platte River. Brother Patterson’s eyes sparkle as he recounts their stories of meeting Indians, working with the railroad, buying a farm and building it up through hard work. His parents staked their own claim about one mile further west and bought a farm bordering the Platte, right on top of the Oregon Trail. The Pattersons still live on that farm and in the same house where he was born 88 years ago. When you look at the beautiful farm and the hundreds of acres of corn and alfalfa, the huge barns and massive equipment, you realize it took three generations to conquer, tame and mold this farm into what it is today. Though Brother Patterson has put an unbelievable amount of genius and hard work into developing this farm, he would be the first to tell you the farm is what it is today because he could stand on the shoulders of those who came before him.

As proud as Brother Patterson is of the family farm, there is one thing he feels even more deeply about; that is his spiritual heritage. When he speaks of the farm, his eyes sparkle. When he speaks of his grandparents’ and his parents’ love for God and zeal for the church, his voice breaks, his eyes moisten, his attitude reflects deep reverence. In his memory, he is walking on holy ground. He tells of hearing his grandmother pray in the grove, “Lord, save my family and bless them down to the third and fourth generation.” He recounts how his parents helped to start the Sunday school at the Methodist Episcopal Church, and how his dad was later the president of the Western Holiness Association. He recounts wonderful stories of camp meetings with the great holiness preachers of the past. He loves to relive the altar services, the singing and the fellowship.

His grandmother’s prayer has been answered. The lines have fallen to the Pattersons in pleasant places. The faith that was found in his grandparents and his parents can still be found both in him and his children. The light still shines.

Handing down to each generation a heritage of spiritual reality is so important. The greatest gift and inheritance we can give a generation that will follow is the influence and memory of a life well-lived for God, the testimony of a clear conscience and of faith that is real and sincere. Nothing else will really last; nothing else will really matter.

The Old Testament emphasized the importance of each generation serving as a link to spiritual reality. Isaac spoke of the God of his father Abraham.  Jacob spoke of the God of Abraham and Isaac. The children of Israel spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Paul wrote to Timothy and charged him not to break faith with his heritage. He admonished him to keep alive the heritage of spiritual reality that was first found in his grandmother Lois and then in his mother Eunice. Timothy could build on that heritage and pass it on to another generation, or he could lose it for coming generations.

Each generation must discover God for themselves. Yet, we can point the way and allow them to build on a heritage of faithfulness.

Job’s Real Pain

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

–September of 1999

Job’s Real Pain

I’ve been pondering over the pages of Job lately.  The portrait that is painted of Job in the first five verses of chapter one is of rare beauty.  Job’s faith is expressed as perfect and complete.  His family was the envy of every parent.  His fortune was the largest in the East, and his fame was world renowned.  Job’s life is portrayed on a canvas of perfect tranquility.

In the course of time, Satan was allowed to paint his own gruesome scene into Job’s life.  In successive strokes of calamity, Job’s peaceful world was turned into utter chaos.  The first blow to fall was the loss of his financial empire.  It was the second blow, however, that took away his greatest treasure—ten wonderful children.  Job was staggered by these vicious blows, but he was still able to hold his head up and declare his faith in God.  All Job had to say was “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Satan was given permission to test Job further, but this time he could touch him physically.  Job was smitten with a type of leprosy known as elephantiasis.  Massive ulcerous sores covered his body.  His limbs were so swollen he became disfigured and unrecognizable.  He was forced to sit as an outcast on the rubbish heap.  His wife counseled him to curse God and die, while his friends could only sit and watch in stunned silence.

In the beginning of his affliction, Job defended God by acknowledging that we must accept the bad as well as the good from His hand.  In contemporary expression, Job understood that trouble eventually knocks at everyone’s door.  As days turned to weeks and months, Job began to feel that trouble had not only knocked, but literally had banged the door down and rushed in with violent disregard.  The loss of all in one swift stroke left him reeling under the intolerable burden of sorrow and suffering.  The constant itching and pain of his sores, and the nausea and other side effects of his illness finally began to take its emotional and spiritual toll on Job.  He sank beneath the billows of despair and depression.  He cursed the day of his birth.  He felt that God was unfair and had “shot him through with arrows.”  Job became so weary and bewildered by his suffering that he finally began to feel that God had only blessed him with so much in order that He could “take it away and harm him.”

As the story progresses, you see that Job’s real pain was far more than physical or emotional.  It was the pain of failing to understand why God was letting this happen to a man who was indeed “blameless.”  Job had been living right, and he knew it.  So why was God letting all this suffering fall on him?

As I thought of Job, I thought about the many people who will read the words that I have written and will identify with the story.  Moms and dads, church leaders and pastors, young couples and senior saints, lonely singles and lively teenagers from all walks of life have an affinity with Job’s “real pain.”  I thought of a precious young couple with whom I went to school whose fifteen-year-old son recently died mysteriously in his sleep.  I thought of a missionary friend whose wife walked out on him and left him with five children to raise.  I thought of a pastor who was carelessly voted out of his church and left to pick up the pieces of his shattered future and heal the wounds of his embittered children.  I thought of a senior saint forced into a lonely nursing home.  I thought of a faithful administrator suffering the terrible pains of burnout and deep depression from having given all to advance God’s kingdom.  I thought of a young wife left alone with two small children after the tragic death of her husband.  I thought of a young teenage girl trying hard to live for God in a godless environment, who brutally lost her virginity to a wicked stepfather’s incestuous behavior.

Like Job, each of these people have journeyed down the treacherous path of pain and to the dark places of sorrow and suffering and can’t understand why.  Perhaps each of us can identify with Job.  None of us are strangers to discouragement and despair.  We, too, battle with the painful question: Why?  The real question is not why, but how do we respond?  Do we just give up and quit?  Do we become bitter and turn our backs on both God and man?  The answer, of course, is a resounding NO!  The great lesson learned from the book of Job is that we have a heavenly Father who can and does bring triumph out of trial and blessing out of brokenness.  Job teaches us that God has a way of using suffering in our lives to make us better.  Someone has said that it is doubtful that God can use any man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.  Suffering has a way of seasoning and sanctifying the soul like nothing else we will ever experience in life.  The tragic marriage and personal suffering of Hannah Whitehall Smith became the seedbed out of which grew unbelievably rich and blessed devotional writings.  J.B. Phillips, who is well known for his beautiful translation of the New Testament, lived in a constant struggle against depression.  His biographers wrote of him, “He knew anxiety and depression from which there was only temporary release.  For a period of fifty years he had to cope with psychological disturbance and dark depression.  And while he never lost his faith in God, he never ceased to struggle against mental pain.”  William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, came to a point more than once in his ministry that he was so drained and dried out that he wanted to quit and get some respectable job that would keep him and his wife Catherine going.  William Booth, however, is remembered by the Salvationists as a tower of strength, a man of abounding energy and unrelenting in his warfare against sin.  Behind the scenes, though, we see a glimpse of his humanity and his being subject, as we all are, to depression in the face of exhaustion and hardship.

The secret to all of these people’s successful lives and the secret to your success is simply in “going on” when life is difficult.  They kept their faith in Him who knows what’s best.

Are you under great stress and facing deep suffering?  Are you under great pressure beyond your ability to endure?  Are you discouraged?  Are you asking questions that seem to have no good answer?  You are in good company.  The great saints who have gone before you did too.

Life will afflict all of us with trouble and pain.  We will all be tempted to turn and run or to give up and quit.  Life will tumble in someday for all of us; but when it does, just keep holding on and keep going on.  Victory and unspeakable blessing will be yours in the end.