Preach and not practice

Preach and not practice

"The great danger of the Christian is to preach and not to practice, to
believe but not to live according to what is believed." Antonio de Padua

Romans 2: 21. You, then, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You
preach that you do not have to steal, do you steal? 22. You who say you do not
have to adulterate, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, commit
sacrilege? 23. You who boast of the law, do you dishonor God in violation of
the law? 24 For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the
Gentiles because of you.

 So this is where we find ourselves and we
decide to get to know each other and create an identity with defined rules to
be coherent wherever we go and thus be able to speak, do, but all things,
simply BE.

Preaching by example, and not practicing with the example, is the
appropriate expression to indicate that
the acts have to accommodate what is said or recommended to others.

Matthew 23: 1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowd and to his disciples, 2 saying:
The scribes and the Pharisees have sat in the chair of Moses. 3 So do and
observe all that they tell you; but do not do according to their works, because
they say and do not do. 4 They bind heavy and difficult to carry loads, and put
them on the backs of men, but they do not even want to move them with a finger.
5 But they do all their works to be seen by men;

It is easier to tell others what they have to do to be better than to take the step to try to be
good Christians. We preach in a word, that is very good for us. But often the
example of our lives is missing. We do not usually do what we ask others to do.
If we really believe, let's put into practice
what we believe. It is what we must do if we consider ourselves followers of
Christ.

Those of us who belong to Christ Jesus are
already new creatures in Christ, bought with his blood: "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature"
(2nd Corinthians 5:17). But now we must become what we are. "Cleanse the old leaven so
that you may be a new lump, just as you are, without leaven" (1
Corinthians 5: 7).

First, to preach with the example, we have to
be very convinced of what we want to be and do and, there, try to instill it in
others.

Many times we think and think, read and read,
but we do not pass from there. Many ideas sound interesting to us, until we
decide to put them into practice. That is when we realize that "from the
saying to the fact, there is a lot of distance". Total, preaching by
example without action is like the tree without fruit.

No one can teach another, what he does not know and what does not apply.
With hypocrisy no one will escape on the day of judgment!