When I was in college, we lived next door to a ministerial student. Every week, we heard him practice what he planned to preach. Our walls were paper thin.

If you practice what you preach, you do what you tell other people to do.

This proverb warns against hypocrisy. It wasn’t enough for the preaching student to practice saying his words. He also needed to practice doing them.

Example has a greater impact than advice.

• Children pay more attention to parents’ behavior than words.
• Students listen better if teachers’ actions match their assignments.
• Employees watch their employers for acceptable business practices.

You are the real McCoy if you practice what you preach.

No pretending. No falsehood. You live what you say.

The world is filled with pretense and falsehood, but you have a better choice.

Jesus set the example. When we follow Jesus, we live and tell His truth to a world that needs to see and hear it.

“Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Matthew 23:3 NIV).

Thanks to Meghan Bowker, Editor, Missions Mosaic, for the idea and to Hayden Dabney, children’s minister at Campbellsville Baptist Church, for the photo.

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