Actions Speak Louder Than Words

    Many probably have heard of the expression that goes, "Actions speak louder than words."   It is one of those modern day proverbs that speaks about ones actions despite what a person says they believe.  It was hard for me to conform to a set of rules in my early life.  I wanted to be a boy scout and my parents got me the uniform and I was a member of the chapter in our little town.  I had the pants, shirt, web belt and even the knife with the can opener and the screw driver.  Then, there came a meeting where we had to learn how to tie certain knots.  That is when I stopped dead in my tracks.  It isn't that I couldn't learn the knots but rather I didn't have a desire to learn the knots.  When I was19 years old my Father gave me an ultimatum that resulted in my joining the U. S. Navy.  Things went well for about 2 weeks and then the pressures of boot camp came to bear on me and I pleaded with Mom to get me out of this mess that I was in.  Her reply was to simply "take it and grow up to be a man."  I was going to be a sailor for the next four years, and I had better get used to it.    First John 5:2 says, " By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments."  
       It was easy for me to say that I was a Christian for much of my life even though it wasn't true.  My four baptisms are evidence of that.  There was something lacking in my life and it turned out to be the fact that I didn't want to live the Christian life but to go alongside the Christian life almost in a parallel track if one could imagine such a thing.  I could say all of the right words, but there was something lacking.  I became aware of it on my day of salvation, and my lacking was due to the fact that was due to not being able to "keep His commandments" (John 14:21).  John, wrote in the his first epistle about the person who was a "conqueror" or the person who was the "victor" in the Christian life.  At that time in my life, I wasn't the conqueror but simply one who said that he was a conqueror.  While Ephesians 2:8-9 remind us that salvation is a gift and that it is by grace through faith that we are saved, verse 10 goes on to say that we "do" good works as a result of our salvation and not for our salvation.  John uses the word "nikao" quite often in his first epistle and it is the word "victor."   It is also used in the Book of Revelation where John writes to the seven churches and uses the same word.  The important thing to note in the Christian life is that we are obedient to God in all that we do.  It is a fulfillment of the "one another" commands given throughout the New Testament such as that found in John 13:34-35.  (love one another).  What we say is often contradicted by what we do, hence the phrase, our "actions speak louder than our words."  We may be "nominal" Christians, that is, believers in name only and not genuine.  There comes a time when we need to do a self examination and see if we are really keeping the commandments of Christ in our lives or are we just Christians in name only.  Praise God today for His wonderful grace by which He has saved us.