There are a couple of guys that show up at the gym regularly, who do a whole lot of talking and not a lot of working out. It’s comical to watch them. You almost couldn’t make this stuff up.
These guys have the best workout clothes and wear impressive looking gloves and belts. They are badly overweight and out of shape, but try to hide it by walking around the gym with their arms up as though they are carrying barrels under their arms. They approach total strangers and offer free advice on proper lifting form and how to build muscle.
All they ever do is the bench press, but they don’t even get much of that done. Seriously, they may get 4 sets done in an entire hour.
One day, one of them came over and started handing out unsolicited training tips, to which I politely replied, “The day I want my body to look like yours is the day I’ll listen to your advice.”
Needless to say, I wasn’t bothered by those guys again.
Some people are all talk and no action. It can happen in many different arenas.
Some people in the church like to talk talk talk about how the world needs Christ and which missionary organizations are doing it right or wrong. They’ll talk about how the local community can be reached and all the logistics of getting the job done. Trouble is, all too often, there is a whole lot of talking followed by not a lot of action.
Let it not be said of us that we were such men and women.
“Training manuals on fire-fighting do not put out fires; the actual fighting of fires does. And when all is said and done, it is not the theory of apologetics which defends the faith and stops the mouth of critics. Only the practice of apologetics can do that~”
Greg Bahnsen
One time someone told me that they didn’t think that my evangelistic methods were the most effective. So I responded by saying I was open to suggestion and asked how he did it. You could have heard a pin drop. He wasn’t doing anything. So I politely told him that I liked what I was doing more than what he wasn’t doing.
Needless to say, I haven’t been bothered by him again.
The world needs what God offers in Christ. Don’t just talk or read about it, go out and do it in the power of God!