Matthew 7:21 tells us, “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.” Wow! Not everyone! I don’t know what this says to you, but to me it says that a Christian can’t be one who only ‘talks the talk’, you have to ‘walk the walk’. Nowhere does it say it is an easy thing to do, simply that we need to do it.
What does it mean to walk the walk? I suspect we all have our definitions but I think it means that we don’t compromise what and who we believe in. Paul talks about being all things to all men in order to convert some, but this does not include denying his beliefs and the person he believed in. Jesus was not someone ‘out there’, pie in the sky, a philosophical belief only. You don’t sneak Jesus in. Jesus was real to Paul and that would be part of the definition – having a relationship with Jesus that touched the here and now. A personal relationship has to be part of walking the walk because what are you sharing if not a relationship? And without a relationship, who are you sharing?
A third component in walking, after not compromising and having a relationship, would be – studying to know, understand, and act on what the Father requires, His will. Fortunately there isn’t a long list of things we must do but it is fascinating that they encompass every facet of our lives. We are told in His word by Jesus in Matthew 22:37-39 that we are to love – first God with all our heart, soul, and mind and then our neighbor as our self. Micah 6:8 gives another perspective when we are told that what the Lord requires is that we do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
Focusing on those few behaviors will place us in a position that we are walking the walk. Obviously there are other behaviors that emanate from the words of Matthew and Micah but the Lord has made it relatively simple for us. He’s not setting up a challenge because He wants us to succeed. When we walk the walk then we are a visible example for others. When we walk the talk then we demonstrate that though we aren’t perfect, we try.
