“It’s easy to agree with what Jesus said.”

A thought by Bob Goff from his book, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People (p. 54). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) 

But agreeing with and doing what he did are two different things, aren’t they?

Bob says, “For me, agreeing is cheap and obeying is costly. Obeying is costly because it’s uncomfortable. It makes me grow one decision and one discussion at a time. It makes me put away my pride. These are the kinds of decisions that aren’t made once for a lifetime; they’re made thirty seconds at a time.”

Earlier he said, “What I’ve been doing with my faith is this: instead of saying I’m going to believe in Jesus for my whole life, I’ve been trying to actually obey Jesus for thirty seconds at a time.

“Here’s how it works: When I meet someone who is hard to get along with, I think, Can I love that person for the next thirty seconds? While they continue to irritate me, I find myself counting silently, . . . twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine . . . and before I get to thirty, I say to myself, Okay, I’m going to love that person for thirty more seconds. This is what I’ve been doing with the difficult commands of Jesus too. Instead of agreeing with all of them, I’m trying to obey God for thirty seconds at a time and live into them. I try to love the person in front of me the way Jesus did for the next thirty seconds rather than merely agree with Jesus and avoid them entirely, which I’m sad to say comes easier to me. I try to see difficult people in front of me for who they could become someday, and I keep reminding myself about this possibility for thirty seconds at a time.”

He then says, “It’s easy to agree with what Jesus said. What’s hard is actually doing what Jesus did.”  But oh, the benefits.

So do you just agree with or do you actually agree with and do what Jesus said?   Let’s agree with and do what.  That is really the best, isn't it?

Yes, yes!