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What to Do When You’ve Been Giving Advice You Aren’t Following · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Speak: Think about the best advice you've ever Odds are you
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  nailed it for somebody else and then turned around and didn't
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  heed it for yourself. And you're in old company. King Solomon was
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  called the wisest man alive. Rulers traveled far and wide to
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  hear him. And his own life was a wreck full of choices he would
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  have anyone else out of. The truth was, Solomon wasn't alone
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  in this. Researchers found the same split running through all
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  of them. Almost all of us. And they found something you can do
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  about it. We'll come back to what the researchers found, but
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  first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I've
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  offered this counsel more than once. I tell people they need a
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  Sabbath rest to build into their week. A day set aside from
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  producing anything. I know it's what we should do and I can make
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  the biblical case for it in about four minutes. Then there
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  are plenty of weeks where I work all seven days. Well, nobody
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  makes me do that. I tell anyone to protect one day a week and
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  then not protect one myself. And I'd have said both of these
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  things possibly in the same week. I worked every single day.
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  Almost every mature Christian has a moment like that. You hear
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  yourself telling a friend to slow down and rest while you've
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  been running yourself into the ground. You tell your kid to
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  pray about it. But then you didn't pray about the last three
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  big decisions you made. Paul had a question for people in exactly
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  that position. It's in Romans chapter 2 and verse number 21.
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  Well, then, if you teach others, why don't you teach yourself?
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  You tell others not to steal. But do you steal?
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  he isn't handing out a self-improvement tip. Back up
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  four verses. He's describing a man who boasts about his
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  standing with God. A man convinced he's a guide for the
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  blind and qualified to instruct everybody else. Then, Paul
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  starts asking questions. If you teach others, why don't you
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  teach yourself? You say adultery is wrong and Paul wants to know
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  whether you commit it. Look at the verb in that question. In
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  the Greek, it's the same word both times. You who teach
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  another, do you not teach yourself? Paul is asking whether
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  the teacher has ever been in his own audience. Then, read three
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  verses further to see what Paul says is at stake because it's
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  bigger than personal habits. Verse 24. The scriptures say the
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  Gentiles blaspheme the name of God because of you. The people
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  watching a teacher draw conclusions about God from how
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  the teacher lives. And Paul's saying they're drawing the wrong
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  ones. And here's where Paul's argument is headed, which keeps
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  this from being a sermon about somebody else. A chapter later,
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  he writes that everyone has sinned and we all fall short. So,
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  Paul puts the inconsistent man in with everybody else and he
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  doesn't give him an out. The one where knowing the right thing
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  counts toward doing it. That's the thing to take from the
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  passage. The counsel you gave was good counsel. It just never
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  earned you anything and treating it like credit is what keeps us
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  from putting it into practice ourselves. So, take your own
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  advice. Pick one piece of counsel you've given somebody
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  else recently and start practicing it this week for
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  yourself. And start with the one you'd be embarrassed to have the
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  other person find out about. That's usually the one with the
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  biggest gap and the one you've been protecting. A psychologist,
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  Igor Grossman, ran the experiments with Ethan Cross. He
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  had people reason through a crisis, sometimes their own and
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  sometimes a friend's. The same people who gave wise,
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  level-headed counsel about a friend's problem turned
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  short-sighted the second it was their own. He called it
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  Solomon's Paradox. Then came the part you can use. When people
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  were coached to step back and see their own situation as if it
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  belonged to someone else, asking why they felt that way, the gap
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  closed. They got as wise about their own mess as they had been
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  about everyone else's, which is close to what Scripture was
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  already telling us. Take the counsel you keep handing out and
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  start aiming it at yourself. One more finding from that work, and
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  it's the one that ought to get your attention. They ran older
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  adults, 60 to 80 years old, against younger adults in their
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  20s and 30s. On somebody else's problem, the older group
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  reasoned better. On their own issues, the older group was no
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  better than the young ones. this. With age comes wisdom, and it
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  applies to other people's dilemmas and not to your own. So
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  this doesn't sort itself out. You don't age into taking your
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  own advice. You have to turn and aim it at yourself on purpose,
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  which is the same thing Paul was asking the man who taught
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  everybody else. Here's today's challenge. Write a piece of
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  advice you gave somebody in the last month. The exact words, if
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  you can remember them. Then put your own name at the top of it
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  and put it into practice. If it's good counsel for them, it's
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  good counsel for you. And do that first piece of it today
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  while the words are still in front of you. Father, you ask
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  through Paul whether the man who teaches others has ever taught
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  himself, and the question still finds us. Thank you that you
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  never counted our good advice as obedience, because counting it
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  would have left us where we were. For everybody listening who's
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  been handing out counsel they haven't taken, give them the
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  nerve to turn it around on themselves this week. Help us
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  live what we tell other people is true. In Jesus' name, amen.
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  If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has been an encouragement
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  to you, would you take a minute and leave a rating and review?
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  It helps more people find these devotions, and it only takes a
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  moment. I'd be so grateful. Thanks for joining me on Daily
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  Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, Paul asked the teacher
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  whether he'd been in his own audience. Put your name on your
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  own advice this week. Come back next time for more encouragement
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  to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God
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  bless and have a great day.