Is Your Walk Real

I remember Manly Beasley saying that he was stirred by reading the books of F.J. Hegel, especially the book, Bone of His Bone, and he learned that F.J. Hegel lived down in Mexico as a missionary, so Manly Beasley planned a trip and traveled down to Mexico to visit F.J. Hegel to see if what he was writing about was real in his life. Graciously, Hegel allowed Beasley to spend a few days with him, and not only did Manly Beasley learn that F.J. Hegel walked the walk he wrote about, but he gave him spiritual counsel that greatly benefited him. Manly told Hegel that he had a problem he couldn't get deliverance from, and he asked for his advice.

Hegel replied, I can't tell you how to get out from under your difficulties, but I can tell you how to live under them. I was having lunch with a pastor one time, and when you watch this man up on the platform before his big congregation, he was one thing, but when you got to know him personally, you soon found out he was altogether different from the message that he preached. And that brings us to our message this evening, friends, which is entitled, Is Your Walk Real? Are you one way at church and another way in your home? Do you tell your kids to do as I say and not do as I do? Is your walk real? Can your spouse say of you that your walk with God is real? Or do you have a pretend Christianity like that pastor who was a wolf in sheep's clothing? Is what you preach to your loved ones real in your life? Or a test can be found in Paul's letter to the Colossians.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 3 and in verses 1 through 3. Here now is the word of God, and may his spirit attend the reading of his holy word. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth, for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. I will stop there. What that means is this.

If you say you are a follower of Christ Jesus, then Christ must be a complete master. Your time is not your own. Your money is not your own.

Your body is not your own. For you were bought with a price, and that price was his blood. We wonder why our young people today leave the church as soon as they can.

It's because they see no reality of God in our lives. What they see is a parent who is one person at church and a completely different one at home. They can see right through us because we have no substance of the living Lord shining through our lives.

Some like sitting on deacon committees because it's a good reputation, but some like sitting on the throne of their lives and ruling there. But the apostle says to be dead to this world and seek those things which are above, to take our affections off the things of this world and give them to Christ because we are dead to sin, dead to our reputations, dead to the accumulation of this world's goods, because our life is hid with Christ and God. And that gets us back to this question.

Is your walk real? If not, then you need a personal revival. I was having lunch with a pastor years ago who wanted me to help him have revival come to his church. He'd been a pastor for nearly 50 years and he yearned for revival to come to his people.

I looked him in the eye and said, if you want revival to come to your church, then it must begin with you. You must repent of your sins and get right with God. Well, he didn't like that, but he accepted it.

And I witnessed him a few months later in a prayer meeting as he threw himself on the floor and he didn't care who was watching or who was looking. And he cried out, Oh Lord, forgive me for my dirty, rotten sins. Send me a revival so you can send one to this church.

Is your walk real? That's the burning question for this evening as we close in prayer.