Faith Must Be Practical
Bill Wilson was a deep Christian and I like what the author said about him on page 40 of this biography:
“His spiritual perceptions were too alive and aware to be confined within the limits of orthodoxy. Every doctrine that the church presented had to be hammered out on the anvil of his own personal experience before he accepted it. Then it entered into the fibers of his whole being as a living truth, as something which would shape character and determine conduct. Theories, as such, never interested him. Ideals must become real. Thoughts must become deeds, or he had little use for them. A friend expressed it well - ‘for Wilson, religion was a divine life, not a divine science.’
More Than Theory
I like that - the Christian faith is a divine life, not a divine science. I think there's an element of both, of course. I'm not at all trying to say that science and faith are incompatible, but I think the point of those words was to say, for this man, faith was more than theory. Faith was more than just ideas. Faith was always lived out practically in the way that he did his life.
Jesus himself said that people will know that we are Christians by our love, not by our theories and not by our ideas, but by our love.
More Than Church Membership
And so the question for you and I today is this: Is our faith more theory than anything practical? Are we Christians on paper, but not in life? Are we Christians on Sundays by membership, but then not at work in our actual life? We need to go further than just agreeing with the precepts of the faith. Our lives must always reflect that which we claim to believe.
In fact, I like how John put it in 1 John 3:18: "Let us not merely say that we love each other, but let us show the truth by our actions."
So, friends, by all means wrestle with the great theories and doctrines of the faith. By all means, think deeply about these things. But remember that when it comes down to it, it's not the doctrine that matters, but it's the action. Go out and be a Christian today.
