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In the 1800s, there was a French man named Charles Blondin who was a tightrope walker unlike any other. He was known for crossing the Niagara Falls on a tightrope in a variety of ways which began on June 30, 1859. 1,100 feet on a tightrope that was three inches in diameter stretched across the falls. The crossing took 20 minutes while using a balancing pole that was 30 feet long and weighed 40 pounds. But, this wasn’t enough…This dude would walk across nine times over the years and on August 19th he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back! Six times he had to pause and let his manager dismount in order to regain enough strength to keep going. One time, Blondin crossed over Niagara Falls while pushing a wheelbarrow. The crowd went wild. Upon coming across with this wheelbarrow, Blondin asked if they thought he could do this again while pushing the wheelbarrow with someone in it. The crowd lost it and shouted “YES!”.

Then Blondin pointed to a man on the front row who seemed to be shouting the loudest and asked, “Okay, since you claim to believe I can do it, why don’t you get into the wheelbarrow.” It is told the man stopped smiling and clapping and simply turned and walked away.

Y’all know what? There is often a great difference between the faith we say we have, and the faith we really have. The real measure of our saving faith is not our “talk”, but our “walk.” Saying that we have faith in God is one thing — but really putting our trust in God is another.

George Barna did a study where, at the time, it showed how four out of five Americans claimed to be Christians, yet they said what they believed had very little to do with how they lived. In 1991, James Patterson and Peter Kim did a survey of Americans and found that 90% of Americans claimed to believe in God — yet 50% hadn’t been in church for worship in the past three months and 30% hadn’t been to church for worship in a year or longer. And before you say, “I don’t need to go to worship with the church. That’s not what the Bible says”, just know Hebrews 10:25 actually tells how you need to go and get plugged in. Over and over in the New Testament we see folks coming together for worship. The point is this, in order to have a saving faith we need to put our faith to action. We need worship. We need each other. We need togetherness. So, do you claim Christ? Then get back in and grow.

Rev. J. Cameron Bailey is pastor of Kenbridge Christian Church. He can be reached at jamescameronbailey@gmail. com.