Practicing What We Preach

[Jesus said,] “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’ ” (Matthew 15:7-11)

Integrity is an essential character trait of a true Christian. Our actions need to be in line with our speech and our speech needs to be in line with our faith in Christ. St. Francis put it this way –

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”

We can’t get very far trying to encourage someone to walk with Christ unless they can see that we are walking with him ourselves.