Practice What You Preach
When the people of Israel returned to Judah and Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus, king of Persia, they were faithful to begin rebuilding the temple, as he had commanded them. However, the people of the region were afraid of them, so they sent letters to Darius, king of Persia, to have him stop the work. That worked for a while, and they stopped building until the prophets Haggai and Zechariah declared God's command to continue the building. Then, they obeyed the Lord. The prophets were engaged in the work, too. (Ezra 5:1,2) This gives all of us a needed reminder.
It is not enough to talk about God's Word and His commands, we must obey them. Even if we are prophets or preachers, we are not exempt from actually doing the work. We must practice what we preach. That goes for all believers. The people of the world and other believers need to hear the Word from us, but they need to see us doing the Word, too. That is when we really have an impact on the people around us. In fact, if we do not practice what we preach, we are hypocrites. The Lord Jesus showed us His disdain for hypocrites while He was with us in this world. We must not fall into that trap and be a terrible witness for Him.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Ezra 6-8.
It is not enough to talk about God's Word and His commands, we must obey them. Even if we are prophets or preachers, we are not exempt from actually doing the work. We must practice what we preach. That goes for all believers. The people of the world and other believers need to hear the Word from us, but they need to see us doing the Word, too. That is when we really have an impact on the people around us. In fact, if we do not practice what we preach, we are hypocrites. The Lord Jesus showed us His disdain for hypocrites while He was with us in this world. We must not fall into that trap and be a terrible witness for Him.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Ezra 6-8.