Practice What You Preach

“Too many people talk the talk, but very few actually walk the walk.”

“Practice what you preach.”

“Action speaks louder than words.”

These statements are to let us know that before we start advising others, we need to first put what we say into practice.

I remember my father telling me not to smoke cigarettes, but then he’d go light one up.

What others need from us is not more rhetoric, but rather they need to see that our actions match what we say. As believers, our actions need to match what God’s word says.

This was a problem with those who should have known better, the Jewish priesthood.

“Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.” (Ezekiel 22:26)

The priests had the responsibility to teach the people between what is good and evil, right and wrong, between how people were and were not to worship and serve God. Their problem, however, was that while they knew the words, they never put them into practice.

They weren’t practicing what they were preaching.

They were avoiding and hiding from the truth they knew, avoiding those parts of the God’s law that were inconvenient, like “They have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths.”

In essence, they were profaning God’s name and making a mockery of His law. And when God went looking for someone to stand in the gap on behalf of His people to spare them, He found no one (Ezekiel 22:30).

Today, we’re to stand in the gap, because as believers we’re that royal and holy priesthood called by God to offer up spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5, 9). But not only that, we’re to be those living spiritual sacrifices (Romans 12:1).

Therefore let’s practice what we preach.