One of my favorite Three Stooges short has them as witnesses in a trial. They are trying to get Curly ready for the stand, and he cannot understand the man trying to administer the oath. The judge breaks in and says, “He’s asking you if you swear…” Curly cuts him off with, “No. But I know all the woids (words).”

I was sitting in Bible study recently and someone mentioned being tempted to do something wrong, but not following through. I agree that doing so is good, but I got sidetracked in my thinking. For one, I started thinking about that short, but that led me to something else.

Most of us know the words, we know what God calls us to do. It’s just that we lag in the follow through. Love our friends? That’s easy enough. Love our enemies? Hold on there, Jesus. Don’t you think that you’re carrying this love thing too far? I’m fine with loving people I don’t despise, but I despise the others for a reason. Loving them kind of defeats the purpose.

Very few would have that conversation with Jesus. Even if we thought about it, I don’t think most of us would have the guts to put it into verbal form. But we do maintain that attitude quite often. Someone cuts you off driving somewhere, love is not the first thing that generally comes to mind.

But we struggle with more than just the love commandments. What about go out into the would and reach people (Matthew 28:19-20)? How often is that carried out? Then there is love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul. With everything you have and are, you are to love God. I could probably list more, but if you are like me, those are enough to think about.

James 1:22 says that we need to put what we hear from God into practice. Just hearing it does no good without using it. It’s great if I know all the words, but unless I’m competing in some kind of quiz program, I’m going to have to put them to use for them to do any good in my life.