I spent the weekend with a group of young people and we were having a great time. One of the young people was full of great advice. She was telling the group about the bad effects of smoking and how addictive it is. She was saying that drinking heavily is really bad and can lead you to do things that you wouldn’t normally do. It was great advice; the problem was she then went outside for a cigarette and talked about missing not getting smashed that night because she was away with us. How much impact do you think her advice had, on the others? Next to zero. That doesn’t mean it was wrong advice but no one listened because she wasn’t taking her own advice. It’s a lesson we can learn and it’s also coming out of this passage. If we claim to be Christian, but gossip about our mates, how can we show people more of Jesus love? If we tell people that Jesus is all we need to know that we are loved but are constantly hunting for a boyfriend or girlfriend, will they believe what we say? Or we could say things like God has only good for me and I know that a relationship is important to get right. We could simple and quietly walk away from gossip and put into practice what Jesus said when he said that we are to love one another. Hey we all make mistakes, but lets not make our tag line “do what I say”, let’s make it “do what I do.”
