Actions Or Words

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”   Mark Twain gets credit for saying this, though I doubt if he was the first.  It is true and we all know it.  But face it, talking is easier, cheaper and more common.  It has been said of an old monk who took his Christian life seriously.  “Let’s go to town and preach the gospel, if necessary use words.”

The final test of Christians’ character is action, not words. It is not what you say that determines your life message, but what you do. John writes: "Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth" (I John 3:18). Consistency is one of the great challenges of the Christian walk. Whenever our actions do not match our words, the message of our actions always overrides the message of our words.   Words from a song from way back in my teen years, is called Silence is Golden by the  Four Seasons in 1964.  It goes like this.  “Talking is cheap people follow like sheep.”  If that is true (that we follow like sheep) no wonder we prefer to use words over actions.