To Live is Christ — walking the talk

My cousins met me in a plaza in downtown Salem, Oregon. The location is a peace project that was built with input from their friends, a couple that came with them. They showed me a concrete wall adorned with a few dozen plaques. These contained quotes and peace slogans etched in metal. As I read the quotes and listened to them talk about these words, I wondered about the value of this project.

The same day, the newspaper cartoons had a strip about a couple of singles spending time with a married couple. The children were misbehaving and the singles told their parents to simply tell them to stop it. They walked away mystified that words didn’t work.

Even though it seemed obvious to me, the peace project people seemed equally oblivious to the power of human selfishness. Children want what they want when they want it. Mother and father can be patient (or not) with their screaming, sibling squabbles and mischief, but every parent soon learns the folly of simply telling them to be nice to each other and cease all their unrealistic demands. Words might have some impact, but they do not change a child’s heart or their wants.

I read the plaques in silence. Some of them had Scripture, but out of context and meaningless. They did not include the parts of the Bible that say the heart is deceitful and needs new life from God. None of them hinted that wickedness is part of the human condition. I mentioned that some people are not interested in being peaceful, but want what they want and do not care if others suffer. No one responded.

This is not to negate the power of words. Salesmen and preachers both know that well-crafted words can affect human behavior. Nevertheless, there is more to peace than telling people to be kind. The sinfulness of man cannot be changed without an act of God. It is as written in the Old Testament . . . 

So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. (Ezekiel 33:31)

Jesus came, lived, died and rose again so people could be forgiven. Yet there is more. We need new hearts. The old sinful self, even forgiven, will keep on sinning, keep on serving itself. Unless God uses His Word to change a person from the inside out, words are just words.

As I read the plaques, I had another question on my heart. What was being done by these people to produce peace? Was this just a statement without any action along with it?  This morning’s devotional verse echoes my thoughts and speaks to me.

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:18)

I want to speak to my cousins about eternal matters. I know that they need to hear the Gospel, to hear about the love of God and His grace to forgive sin and offer us eternal life. But will words be enough? Will God give me any words? Or just words? Or will He ask me to do something that will speak louder than words?

The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17), yet when God spoke, He also become one of us, providing loaves and fishes, giving healing touches, and taking sin’s rap by dying on the cross. His words are powerful, yet He never spoke without taking whatever actions was necessary to prove that He means what He says.