Walk the Talk

If you want to really know a person’s values or belief system, it is important to observe how they behave in terms of their attitude and lifestyle rather than what they say. For example; do they practice what they preach; do they walk the talk; do the issues they speak about align with what they do?

1 Corinthians 4:20 NKJV
For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.

The kingdom of God is not just about words and rhetoric, but it is about action, attitude, behavior, lifestyle and power.
In one’s Christian life, it is not important to just talk about what you believe in, but it is important to demonstrate your beliefs through your attitude and through-out your daily lifestyle. Faith without corresponding action is dead (James 2:26). You cannot claim to believe in the things of God, but yet your attitude, your behaviour and your actions do not demonstrate the kingdom of God nor of the teachings of God.
When you become a Christian, you become a member of the kingdom of God. And as a member of God’s kingdom, your lifestyle must resemble, honour and glorify the values and teachings of the King (that is God).

Matthew 7:21 NKJV
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

Jesus taught that the person who does the will of the Father, is the one who will enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus taught that living a life of obedience to God is more important than rhetoric.
It is not important to just “talk” like a Christian or to tell people that you are a Christian – but you also have to practice the Christian life according to God’s word and teachings through being obedient to God. If you believe in God’s teachings and when you practice what you believe, then you show to others and to God that you are indeed a genuine Christian.
Ask yourself – are you doing the will of God in your life? Are you obedient to the will and values of God?
Therefore a person is not a Christian because he/she says so – but a person is a Christian because Christ Jesus is reflected or demonstrated in his/her daily life and behavior.

James 1:22-24 NKJV
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

It is not enough to merely sit at the church pews every Sunday, listen to the preacher teach, but not practice the word that you have been taught.
It is not enough to read the Bible, listen to gospel music, but not obey the teachings of the Bible.
Whenever we do not practice what we profess to believe – then we become hypocritical and allow deception to rule our lives.
James says that if we hear the word but do not practice God’s word, then we become like a man who forgets what he looks like. When a man “forgets what kind of man he was”, it means that; he does not know who he is or what God made him to be; it means he cannot identify himself and therefore he cannot identify God’s mission & purpose for his life because he is not aligning himself with practicing God’s word.
Hearers-only of the word take a quick glance in the mirror, but don’t do anything to fix what they see. Hearers-only do not know who they are in Christ. Hearers-only have no intention to obey the word of God, nor do they have any intention to fix an ungodly blemish in their own life. Hearers-only of the word forget what they have been taught. Hearers-only end up deceiving themselves because they end up living according to their own understanding and their self-made value systems rather than living according to the values mentioned in the word of God.

1 Timothy 4:15-16 ESV
Practice these things, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Evidence of your walk with Christ / Christian life is seen by whether you practice God’s teachings.

TODAY. Don’t just talk the talk. Walk the talk.