For the Love of God
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Deuteronomy 6:5 NASB
Might – “If love is real, one should be able to express deep, intimate feelings, unafraid of being judged, ridiculed, or mocked; one is able to take off masks and be who he or she is.”[1] Doesn’t God command us to love Him like this? Doesn’t He want us to come before Him with everything we’ve got? So then, do you love YHVH with all your might? Ah, but the word doesn’t mean “might.” The Hebrew word, me’od, is almost always an adverb, not a noun. It should be translated as “exceedingly” or “muchness.” As McBride notes: “mĕʾōd accents the superlative degree of total commitment to Yahweh.”[2] The word modifies the verb “to love.” To love God is to be unafraid to take off the gloves in the relationship. To love God is to let Him see who you really are, what you really feel. To love God is to fight for the relationship on every level! It is not to give up, give in or give over.
You might have thought that your real spiritual battle was with the so-called Enemy, the big bad guy in the underworld. But I rather doubt that is the case. Ha-satan is not some super powerful evil equivalent of the Most High God. He too must come before YHVH to ask permission for his intentions. He is just as powerless as you or I when compared to the sovereignty of the Lord. Don’t give him one more inch than he is allowed according to the permission of the One True God! No, the real battle in the heavenlies is with the only ruler of the cosmos, YHVH. Do battle with Him and all the rest will be nothing more than annoyance.
Can you stand before the Lord and argue your case? Are you ready to shout back, shake a fist, roll your eyes, object and protest? Ah, God might prevail, of course, but does that mean you give up before you start? What kind of relationship consists of one party battering the other into submission just because He is omnipotent? Is that love? Or is love taking off the masks, acting with me’od and not being afraid to do so?
If a man’s prayer is only answered when he stakes his life on it, what kind of prayer is the prayer of abject submission? A prayer that isn’t answered! What would you do if you knew that you would die with your prayers unheard? Would you be so quick to engage in religious platitudes, in placating rituals, in vapid articulation? If your life depended on it, wouldn’t your prayers be the engines of attack and counterattack? Wouldn’t you do and say anything you could to stay alive?
I wonder if most of your prayers are nothing more than spiritual suicide. I wonder how disappointing it is to the Lord to hear such feeble excuses for love.
Topical Index: prayer, me’od, might, muchness, Deuteronomy 6:5
[1] Avraham Weiss, Holistic Prayer, p. 55.
[2] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 1134 מאד. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed.) (487). Chicago: Moody Press.
My wife and I both buried a parent in the past 6 month and just when “normalcy ” was returning we lost everything in a house fire right before Thanksgiving. The platitudes and musings of my “comforters” is nauseating….no one has encouraged me to take the gloves off….
Is there anything we can do to help!!!
You are in our prayers Craig, but we are with Skip. What further can we do?
I’m so sorry to hear all this Craig. As others have said, how can we help?
John
Re: Gloves
Your gloves are off, brother, no platitudes will replace them.
It sux, no doubt. I can only think of one thing to respond with, and it may not comfort at this point.
There’s nothing left to hold you back, materially; when you are able to come up for air, able to connect to reality, you might be able to give thanks for that. And when you are able to say ‘every day, in every way, how can i glorify you’, you might find that you have many fewer encumbrances.
When i lost everything i had one person say that to me, i was angry and oddly comforted at the same time.
Be in the moment. Be real. Grieve.
Be willing to glorify in your agony.
in the end, that’s all any of us have. Our willingness.
I think the most I’ve owned is to put the gloves on for show but don’t even want to think about getting in to the ring. It’s much easier and socially acceptable to submissively sing a verse or two of “It Is Well With My Soul” and walk off unengaged, or blend in to the endless programs and activities we create to distract.
The weekly attendance at a “Six Flags Over Jesus” meeting was drilled in to my upbringing.
I think I’m in need of some wrestling and boxing matches with a worthy and committed partner.
When your life’s on the line, anything goes? All’s fair in love and war? Just throw the Book out the window in such circumstances–that’s what He demands?
One more question: when is life NOT on the line; i.e., independent of His Will regarding its continuance?