All Is Everything

Loving God With Everything

מאד
me’ôd muchness, force, abundance, exceedingly

“Hear, O Israel, Yehovah our God is one Yehovah. And you shall love Yehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might (me’od).” Deut. 6:4 – 5

This is commonly called the shema, from the first word in Hebrew. shema means to demonstrate that you have heard because you have done what was spoken. I heard therefore I did. It does not refer to sound waves merely hitting your ear drum, but to the sound hitting your ear drums and through the miracle of how we are created, turning them into action.

My journey into becoming a Torah pursuant disciple of Yeshua (aka Jesus) was a long and slow journey. I have not arrived, but I am thoroughly enjoying the journey. This journey began in the early 1980’s when I was at Bible college in the midwest and I began asking many questions of my professors.

Then I moved to Colorado to attend Denver Seminary where I was introduced to the Hebrew language and fell in love with the language. A minor in Hebrew in my master’s program and my world began to change. Through the language I saw with new eyes.

Eventually I would earn a Doctor in Hebrew Letters, nearly two decades in the making with an emphasis in intercultural communication and how to communicate to a heart.

And along the way on this journey I fell “head over heels” in love with my Creator.

I began to realize along the way the he was actually in love with me. He didn’t just put up with me, he liked me, and wanted me to be a part of his family. As that realization grew, I began to realize that in order to love him, I had to understand that he loves me.

“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1Jn 4:19

I read that many times, but until I began to understand how much he loves me, (I am one of the us’s), it just never quite made it in.

How do I know he loves us (and me)? Too many ways to write about. Read your Bible from cover to cover and you will find out on your journey.

One of the worst things that has ever happened on planet earth is when the church began printing “New Testament Only” edited versions of the Bible. His love goes from cover to

cover and if you only have the end of the book, you will never know the love that began long before the closing chapters.

Take our passage, the shema.

It says he is One Yehovah, not two, not a “God of the Old Testament” and then a different “God of the New Testament.” I prefer to call them the Hebrew Scriptures and the Apostolic Writings, which is more accurate. One God, the same forever.

So what does he say in the shema?

To love him with all our heart. Understanding heart from a Hebrew worldview was at the core of my dissertation. Summing up almost two decades of research, heart in the Hebrew worldview is “your mind, will and emotions revealed through what you do.”  It is not what we think that is important, it is what we do, as John reminds us:

“By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep His commandments.” 1 John 5:2 (see BEOTB Loving God With All Your Heart)

So what then about our strength? What about Paul who says “But God chose the foolish things of the world that the wise might be put to shame, and God chose the weak things of the world so that He might put to shame the strong things.” 1 Cor. 1:27

Aah, the beauty of the Hebrew language. There are over 20 words in Hebrew that we can translate as “strength.” Why so many? It’s about doing and not thinking.

So what about me’od?

This word first appears in Gensis 1:31 where God calls everything he has made “very good.” In Hebrew that is tov me’od, good very!

So at its root me’od means muchness.

I am to love Yehovah (my) God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my muchness. (me’od).

My Muchness? Yep, your muchness!

What do you have in abundance? What has he given you that is flowing over in your life? Finances? Love him with your muchness. Abilities? Love him with your muchness.

Talent? Love him with your muchness. What is the first thing that comes to your thoughts when you think about abundance? Love him with that. Your muchness is one aspect of his love for you. We can show our love out of what we lack – like the widow with the two copper coins. But we can much more show our love and gratitude by loving him out of what we have in our abundance. Your abundance is him loving on you.

Love him with your muchness and see what happens to your love for him.