Live It and Proclaim It

In the military, if soldiers go absent without leave, or AWOL, a military court will rip their stripes off. It essentially takes away their rank.

I wonder sometimes if we need something like that in the church, something where Christians lose their stripes for being bad witnesses.

It’s better not to be a witness at all than to be a bad witness. What drives me crazy is to see people talk about the Lord all the time and then openly contradict it by the way they live.

In other words, they are light without being salt. Jesus said that we are to be both salt and light: “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? . . . You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:13–14 NLT).

In contrast to salt, which is primarily living what we believe, light signifies proclaiming what we believe. Each one is important.

But here’s the problem. Some Christians are light without being salt. In other words, they talk about it, but they don’t live it. If you are one of those people, may I ask you a personal favor? Would you please stop talking about Jesus?

Then there are people who are salt without being light. They live it. They’re godly people. But they never tell anyone about Jesus. However, the Bible says, “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (Romans 10:14 NLT).

If you want to be a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ, you need to live it. And you need to proclaim it.