Draw Near – 365 Guides to Greater Intimacy with GodSample

MEN OF ACTION

"I want my religion like my tea--hot!" proclaimed General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. In 1865, he set up his first mission for down-and-outers in London. Booth's officers used shock methods to win converts. They charged into gin palaces and dragged drunkards out. They gained public attention with all the tricks of a circus barker. One poster told of "men who were once wild as lions, savage as tigers. . . who were prowling through the black jungles of sin, but captured by our troops and tamed."

While one may disagree with Booth's methods, there is no doubt his efforts affected modern history. The Salvation Army is today a monument to a man so dedicated to his Christ that he did something about rescuing the perishing.

James said that men of faith are men of action, not just words. In a colorful word picture, James noted that if we look into God's Word and do nothing about what we see there, we are like a man who looks into a mirror and then forgets what he saw. Practical Christianity involves doing something about cleaning up our own lives and reaching the lost. We need a few more William Booths in our century, men who like their religion "hot" with active service to their Master. Real believers are not merely hearers; they are doers.