In Perfect Time

(This poem is in response to Emma’s Wednesday Writing Prompt of 22/3/23)

In perfect time 

from the beginning 

the beating of His heart 

though world-deaf hearts 

could not hear 

the throbbing of compassion 

passionate blood-pulse 

unchanging shock-vibration 

of His footsteps’ cadence 

fiercely one-track  

until at the right time 

beating in perfect time 

His heart bent down 

and synchronized our hearts 

to His 

and set us walking  

to the rhythm of His love 

to the tempo of delight 

the shout of the finale 

now thundering 

in our hearts  

For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8 (Berean Bible) 

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:25 (ESV)

Photo of Metronome by ERTZETIK https://flic.kr/p/fQphQL

God’s Proposal

He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 2 Timothy 1:9-10 

Sometimes God leads me to look deeper into a seemingly obvious and unremarkable word. That happened with the word translated “purpose” in the verse above. That word is prothesis (πρόθεσις) and in it I discovered an astounding hidden treasure. 

The word means a proposal or intention, the setting forth or placing in view of something. Literally, it means “a setting forth in advance for a specific purpose, God’s pre-thesis.”¹ But the breathtaking thing about this word is that, specifically, it means the setting out of the showbread, the sacred bread. The “twelve loaves of wheaten bread, corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel, which loaves were offered to God every Sabbath, and, separated into two rows, lay for seven days upon a table placed in the sanctuary.”² About this bread, Got Questions has this to say: 

“The Old Testament showbread placed on the table in the tabernacle provides a wonderful picture of Jesus, the Bread of Life. Jesus is holy before God, He provides true sustenance, and He is always present. “Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry’” (John 6:35).”³ 

Do you see what the verse in 2 Timothy is revealing? 

Jesus, the Bread of Life, the answer to our hunger, the satisfaction of all our cravings, the very sustenance of the world. Jesus – the grace of God given before the beginning of time now revealed – Jesus is God’s proposal, God’s intention. Jesus is the life and the salvation and the redemption that God proposes. His purpose all along. And this Bread was laid out in the Temple every day, every day. Always there, always present. 

But do you know what the most precious thing is that I realized about this verse? The word “proposal” means you know, something else. It means a marriage proposal. The intention, the passionate longing of God’s heart from eternity to eternity.  

Jesus is God saying to you and me, “Will you marry me? Will you be the Bride?” 

And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me “My Husband” … Hosea 2:16 

… Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb. Revelation 21:9 (ESV) 

¹HELPS Word-studies 

²Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance 

³Got Questions https://www.gotquestions.org/bread-of-the-presence.html

Picture of the bride, detail from photo by Caitlyn Brouwer

Heart Squeeze

From heaven the Lord looks down and sees … he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. Psalm 33:13, 15 

God forms the hearts of all. According to the Strong’s definition, he forms, shapes, molds, fashions our hearts as a potter. But the part of the definition that stuck with me the most is: squeezing into shape.  

I believe that God uses our suffering, our circumstances, our pain to squeeze our hearts into shape. The God-shape of Love. Have you ever felt your heart squeezed? I’m not talking about romantic or sentimental feelings as in this definition: 

heartsqueeze That feeling caused by intense longing, nostalgia or heartwarming which is really intense and feels like someone or something has reached into your chest and is squeezing your heart. “Terry gets massive heartsqueeze every time she sees photos of her old cats.” (Urban Dictionary)

No, the feeling I’m talking about is more like having a heart attack. 

“A pressing, squeezing, or crushing pain, usually in the chest under your breastbone.” — Johns Hopkins Medicine, Angina Pectoris 

I’m talking about the gasping, doubled over, feel-like-you’re-dying pain that wakes you up sobbing and causes you to cry out, Why? How long? Where are you? David knew this heart squeeze well. 

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Psalm 13:1 

I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. Psalm 38:6 (NLT) 

Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Psalm 43:2 

My eyes are blinded by my tears. Each day I beg for your help, O LORD; I lift my hands to you for mercy. Psalm 88:9 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Psalm 21:1 

This is the kind of heart-squeezing pain that comes from seeing children leave the faith and wander off into enemy territory. From loved ones committing suicide. From watching family members suffer decades with a debilitating illness, loneliness and depression and nothing ever changing, just getting worse. From the trauma of abuse and neglect cycling down through the generations. From being so beat down you are just waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. From the crushing pain of feeling/knowing that you have failed loved ones and God. 

Elizabeth Elliot, who experienced the pain of the squeezed heart, said this: 

“Suffering is a mystery that none of us is really capable of plumbing. And it’s a mystery about which I’m sure everyone at some time or other has asked why. If we try to put together the mystery of suffering with the Christian idea of a God who we know loves us, if we think about it for as much as five minutes, the notion of a loving God cannot be possibly be deduced from the evidence that we see around us, let alone from human experience.” 

Yes, God’s purpose in our pain is something that is beyond our minds to grasp, bigger than we can comprehend. It is tempting to paint God with human characteristics, smearing him as self-serving, capricious, even sadistic. Brennan Manning called God’s silence in our pain a scandal, and yet also a passage. 

“The scandal of God’s silence in the most heartbreaking hours of our journey is perceived in retrospect as veiled, tender Presence and a passage into pure trust that is not at the mercy of the response it receives.” — Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust 

Jesus knew the squeezing of the heart, he knew the silence of his Father God as he hung on the cross, and he cried out Why? I don’t know, maybe Jesus allowed himself to be blinded for a time to God’s purpose in his life so that he could experience fully the suffering we suffer. The agony of feeling abandoned, forsaken, forgotten. So that he could show us how to choose the ruthless trust, the even though, the yet. The though-He-slay-me decision to keep going on walking with our Father, to keep believing in his all-things-work-together-for-good loving character, his goodness and wisdom, his very heart-essence.  

“If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, your idea of heaven here on earth or pie in the sky or whatever, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit it. But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure.” — Elizabeth Elliot, Suffering is Never for Nothing 

I’m sorry, I don’t have any stunning conclusions or answers. I am shaky. I cry out in the agony of God’s silence. Yet, I am committed to pressing on. Because I trust the hands of the One who is doing the squeezing. I trust his character and essence. I trust his great heart. I can’t put myself on the level of Paul, but I say with him, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able (mighty, powerful, able, strong, capable; makes all things possible).”

Lord show me the way, lead me through the Narrow Gate, the passage into pure trust in You.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. Psalms 139:23-24 

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! Psalm 27:13-14 

Trust in Him at all times, O people, pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah. Psalm 62:8 

Photo free download from Pexels, by Belle Co

Before I Was Myself

“Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal, everything depended on emotional interaction. Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no way of knowing who we were.” ― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You 

No way of knowing who we were. Wow, that quote grabbed me. You see, I was raised by very wounded parents who were unable to reflect my emotions. And for most of my life I have been a blank. Not knowing who I was, even what I like, what I wanted, except to make sure everyone else had what they wanted. I never had a “look” or a “style” except to remain as invisible as possible. My ambitions were manufactured to please someone else. I didn’t even know what color my eyes really were until I was 40 years old and I attended a “find your fashion color palette” class. They looked at me and said, “you have green eyes.” What!? I had been told they were brown, and as I tried not to look at myself too much in the mirror, I thought they were brown.  

Around that time, I was at a weekend, overnight conference and in the middle of the night I got up to use the bathroom. Halfway across the dark hotel room I was rooted to the spot when I heard very clearly, deep in my spirit, God say to me, “You are mine.” It was the beginning of identity. Of course, in my messed-up state, I thought God meant that I was his servant and I needed to DO something. I frantically started searching around for that something. It is true that we have good works which God has “prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10),” but now looking back over 30 years later, I am beginning to see that that is not what God meant as he confronted his green-eyed daughter that night.  

Then the other day I read this wonderful poem by a fellow blogger: 

In HIM Redeemed 

Volumes of silence, powerful prayer 

From love filled praise, or deep despair 

Tangible faith, Father hears our heart 

Lifted belief, His love from the start 

No anonymity, from the bended knee 

He’s waited for our prayer to be 

Surrendered and lost, no longer bound 

Prayer by faith, in Him we’re found 

— Sisylala¹ 

There is no anonymity when I seek to know my Father. There is no being unrecognized or unseen. There is no being invisible – he looks me in the eye and knows who I am. Though surrendered and seemingly lost, in him my real identity is found. Not by wonderful things I have done. Not by what a “good girl” I have been. But rather by my-heart-to-his-heart knowing. My yearning for him reflected in his yearning for me. Knowing who I am is a reflection of God knowing me, and in knowing me choosing me. Astounding!  

Charles Spurgeon said it well: 

“If he had not loved me with a love as deep as hell and as unutterable as the grave, if he had not given his whole heart to me, I am sure he would have turned from me long ago. He knew what I would be, and he has had long time enough to consider of it; but I am his choice, and there is an end of it; and unworthy as I am, it is not mine to grumble, if he is but contented with me. But he is contented with me—he must be contented with me—for he has known me long enough to know my faults. He knew me before I knew myself; yea, he knew me before I was myself.” — Charles Spurgeon, The Incarnation and Birth of Christ, December 23, 1855 

Oh, my sweet Father God, you knew me before I was myself. You made me who I am. You made me to belong to you. Thank you for your amazing knowing and loving! Eye-to-eye, face-to-face, heart-to-heart, I am yours and you are mine (!) 

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless (strengthless, feeble, weak), Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8 

But you, O LORD, know me; you see me … Jeremiah 12:3 (ESV) 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” … Jeremiah 1:5 

My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16 

¹https://sisylala.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/in-him-redeemed/  (emphasis mine)

Photo free to use from Pexels, Man Carrying Baby Drawing Their Foreheads, by Josh Willink 

Bring Back Your Heart

But you must return (repent, return to your starting point, be restored, bring back your heart, do it and do it again, turn back) to your God;  

maintain (protect, guard, keep watch, have charge of the garden, keep, preserve)  

love (goodness, kindness, mercies, pity, merciful kindness, lovingkindness, especially to the lowly and needy and miserable)  

and justice (right, rectitude, judgement, the verdict of God),  

and wait for (patiently, tarry, wait on, wait upon, expect, look eagerly for) your God  

always (continually, constantly, daily like the morning and evening sacrifice, with uninterrupted continuity like the Bread that is always there). Hosea 12:6 

Into the dark night

God brought us his heart  

Laid it in a manger 

A baby’s cry echoing our pain 

A tiny fist clutching life of breast 

Then opening on prickly manger hay 

Wrapped shroud-like against the biting cold 

The heart of God 

The heart of the universe 

The heart to be broken and pierced 

He brought his heart into the darkness 

He brings his heart again tonight 

He brings his heart always 

Uninterrupted continuity 

Like the morning and evening sacrifice 

Like a tiny open hand on manger hay 

Bring back your heart. 

Photo by Jack Bair

Fix the Value

Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. John 5:22-23 

Jesus uses the word “honor” four times in this passage. The last time I read it the thought popped into my head: what does it really mean to honor? What does Jesus mean by “honor”? 

The word in the Greek is timaó (τιμάω), and the definition was surprising to me. It means “to fix the value or price of something.” It means properly to “assign value (give honor), as it reflects the personal esteem (value, preciousness) attached to it by the beholder.”¹

The value and preciousness! Think of that and replace the word “honor” above. “… that all may value the preciousness of the Son just as they value the preciousness of the Father.”  

Now think about this. This is the same word used in Matthew 27 about the Pharisees giving Judas thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus to them, and then using it to buy the potter’s field when Judas returned it: 

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price (timaó) of him on whom a price (timaó) had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.” Matthew 27:9-10 (ESV) 

Zechariah also prophesied about this fixing of a value, saying: 

And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—this magnificent sum at which they valued me! So I took the thirty coins and threw them to the potter in the Temple of the LORD. Zechariah 11:13 (NLT) 

Zechariah sarcastically called it a “magnificent sum” because thirty silver coins was the price or value of a slave set in Exodus 21:32. 

So, the value or preciousness of Jesus Messiah was set by the Pharisees as the price of a slave. The ironic thing, of course, is that Jesus agreed with their valuation, at least partly. He called himself a servant or slave. 

“… whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:44-45 

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he [Jesus] made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant (doulos = slave), being made in human likeness. Philippians 2:6-7 

Jesus said that he honored (timaó) his Father and that in doing that he was seeking to bring glory to the Father. 

“I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory (doxa) for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. John 8:49-50 

Interestingly, the Greek word doxa, translated here “glory,” also has a meaning of valuation. Doxa means having a good opinion in the New Testament. It means “exercising personal opinion which determines value.” According to Joseph Thayer², it literally means “what evokes good opinion, i.e. that something has inherent, intrinsic worth.” 

Inherent, intrinsic worth. Jesus honored, valued as precious, his Father – and pointed us to that same good opinion – because of the Father’s inherent, intrinsic worth. Just because of who He is. Because He is our enduring-loving forever, faithful and unfailing Father. Always and forever through all generations. And Jesus came as a slave that we might know the precious heart of God – a heart that is for us and loves us – and in knowing, have life. 

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10b 

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3 

This all made me think: what is his value to me? Is he precious to me? Does his value to me rest on his intrinsic worth, who he is? Or does it rest on what he can do for me? Like an insurance policy? A ticket to riches and success? A slave to fill my needs and obey my wishes and whims? A life preserver to be thrown out in case I get into trouble?  

For many, his value is less than even that. To them he is a well-meaning person who can be a good role model in some situations. Or he is of no value at all, like he was to those of his day who despised and scorned and rejected Him, walking by the cross shaking their heads. 

I can only set his value as precious beyond anything in the heavens and earth, if I know, know, know what he has done for me. If I have really understood and acknowledged and owned my sin and the ongoing, infectious horror of it. If I have fully comprehended from what dark pit his death on the cross has delivered me. Then I know his worth. Then I know he is worthy of all my honor, all my praise and gratitude, all my life. 

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 1 Peter 1:18-19 

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor (value, esteem of the highest degree, preciousness, price) and glory (because of inherent and intrinsic worth) and praise! Revelation 5:12  

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound 
That saved a wretch like me 
I once was lost, but now am found 
Was blind but now I see 

Was Grace that taught my heart to fear 
And Grace, my fears relieved 
How precious did that Grace appear 
The hour I first believed 

— John Newton 

¹definitions from HELPS Word-studies by Discovery Bible, 2021 

²Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament 

Image in the Public Domain, Judas Returning the Thirty Silver Pieces by Rembrandt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Repentant,_Returning_the_Pieces_of_Silver#/media/File:Judas_Returning_the_Thirty_Silver_Pieces_-_Rembrandt.jpg  

Torn

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Mark 1:9-10 

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Mark 15:37-38 

Did you see that? Did you ever really see that!? I didn’t. At the beginning and end of Jesus’ earthly ministry the way into the Presence of God was opened. Not just a casual opening of a window either. But a cleaving asunder, a rending, a tearing apart.  

The Greek word translated “torn” in both verses is schizó (σχίζω). It means to split, divide, rend, sever (literally or figuratively), break, open, make a rent.  

The Matthew 27 telling of the moment of Jesus’ death uses the word schizó twice and captures the passion and energy: 

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn (schizó) in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split (schizó). Matthew 27:51 (ESV) 

This was the plan from the beginning, from the sealing shut of Eden – to make a Way back into the Presence of God. He has done His part and torn away the veil, the dividing wall between us and God because of our sins. Let us tear away what we stubbornly hold onto that keeps us from Him.

Let us be as passionate, and even violent, about it as He is. Jesus said, “if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off … if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.” Let us love Him with our whole heart.

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Joel 2:13

Come into His Presence! Jesus made the way for you. 

This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence. Ephesians 3:11-12 (NLT) 

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out (cried out loudly and urgently using a shout that expressed deep emotionⁱ), “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive … John 7:37-39 (ESV) 

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. Revelation 22:17 

Salvation

ⁱcf. HELPS Word-studies for 2896 krázō, by Discovery Bible 

Image copyright by Derek Bair

Nothing

Recently I read a quote by Kierkegaard that took my breath away, until I realized what he really meant: 

“I have only one word to say, but if the power were given me to utter it, that single phrase, so that it would be fixed and unforgettable, then my choice is already made and I know what I would say: ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ was nothing; O Christendom, remember this!’” — Søren Kierkegaard, Papers 

“Our Lord Jesus Christ was nothing!!” This statement was startling, even blasphemous, to me at first. But then I remembered these verses: 

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as (think like, direct your mind, seek for, set your mind, have the mind and thoughts of) Christ Jesus:  

Who, being in very nature God (though he was God), did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage (grasped, asserted, clung to, exploited),  

rather, he made himself nothing (emptied himself, gave up his divine privileges, made himself of no reputation, without recognition, valueless) by taking the very nature of a servant (slave), being made in human likeness.  

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled (assigned himself a lower rank, abased) himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV) 

Kierkegaard, in Denmark, was reacting, as Wilberforce had done earlier in Englandⁱ, to the prevailing Pharisitic mindset that focused on outward appearances, and believed that all it took to be a Christian was to live in a “Christian” nation, attend the State-approved (acceptable) church, give your tithes, and, even better, have your own noticeable pew dedicated to your family. What you did the rest of the week didn’t matter. Individual responsibility for holiness was unknown or ignored. 

Most of these, especially well-to-do, churchgoers wanted to be “something.” They wanted to be “somebody.” But our worth to God does not come from outward appearances, accomplishments or wealth. In fact, these sorts of “something” may be detestable to God if they become our gods. 

He said to them [the Pharisees], “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight. Luke 16:15  

But Jesus chose to be “nothing,” though he, of all humans to ever walk the earth, had the right to be Somebody – King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But he chose to be of no reputation, valueless, and he is our model. The word describing Jesus’ choice to become “nothing” is the Greek verb kenóō, which means “properly, to empty out, render void; (passive) be emptied – hence, without recognition, perceived as valueless (Phil 2:7).” ⁱⁱ 

This Greek word comes from kenós, which means “empty, void; hence, worthless (“null”), amounting to zero (of no value, profit).”   

Very few of us choose to be a big fat zero. We may feel like one, but we rarely choose it. Most of us crave the approval, the recognition, the respect of the world. You can only choose to be nothing and valueless in the sight of the world if you have a solid-rock certainty that you are of infinite value to God – and that others also have infinite value. 

And Jesus knew his value to God – “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 17:5). And he knew our value to God, for it beat passionately, faithfully, unending, unchanging in his heart, the very heart of God. And so, he came to be a nothing and to be “obedient to death— even death on a cross” for us. You are of great value to your Father. 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16  

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 1 John 4:9 

Might I dare to become nothing with him to bring his lost loved children home? What would that look like? It would mean to trust utterly, even to the last breath. 

But he has demonstrated his own love for us … 

“God creates out of nothing—wonderful, you say: yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Journals 

God keeps bringing this theme back to me in different facets. See also Emptied

ⁱ A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. William Wilberforce. Fulltext available at Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25709  

ⁱⁱ Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible

Image: Detail from Ford Maddox Brown, Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet [1852-6], Tate Archive, image  released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

God Sows

seeds  

on the hard path 

birds come and eat 

like Abraham  

driving vultures off  

the sacrifice 

God sows  

even the hard path 

Out of the Heart

“The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31 

The word translated “with” here – “with all your heart” – is ek or ex. It is “a primary preposition denoting origin (the point whence action or motion proceeds), from, out (of place, time, or cause literal or figurative).”ⁱ So, you could also translate this command as “Love the Lord your God out of, or, from the whole of your heart.”  

I guess what struck me about this verse is that the love that Jesus is talking about comes from the inside out. It is not just part either, like a tithe or what is convenient. It is all, whole, completely. This is like the poor widow that impressed Jesus so much. 

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of (ek) her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” Mark 12:43-44 

She gave “out of.” She gave all.  

And, this kind of love is not pasted on the outside. There is a related Greek word, exothen, which means “from without.” It is the word Jesus used when rebuking the Pharisees. 

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside [exothen] of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” Matthew 23:25-26 

 They did their good, religious works, not out from their hearts, but from the outside. They were “from without” like the costume and makeup and script of an actor. That is what hypocrite means in the Greek: “an actor under an assumed character.”  

But God is always, relentlessly, about the inside out. 

“Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean’” … [Jesus] went on: “What comes out of (ek) a man is what makes him ‘unclean’. For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean’.” Mark 7:15, 20-23 

Maybe that is what circumcising your heart is all about. Getting rid of the outside, the “from without” attempts to be right with God – the attempts that so often end up in play-acting and self-righteousness – and get down to what is really in there. 

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that (for the purpose, to the intent that, to the end that) you may live. Deuteronomy 30:6 (ESV) 

In Mark 12:29-31, Jesus is quoting the “Shema” in Deuteronomy 6:4-5: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. When I went back to see the corresponding Hebrew word for the Greek ek, “out of,” I was surprised to find that the word translated “with” is not in the Hebrew at all. It is as if the commandment is:  

Love the Lord your God heart! Love him soul! Love him strength! All and completely – the whole of, altogether, the totality! 

The Shema talks straight to the heart, and God’s passionate desire is that the heart respond straight back. Like the poor widow, there might not be much of worth in there. I know there is not much good in mine, except what He has given. But, out of the poverty of my spirit, out of my yearning heart, I want to respond completely and totally.  

As you are one, Lord, may our hearts and mind and strength respond to your command in love as one. Unified and pure. 

The goal of this command is love, which comes from (ek = out of) a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 1 Timothy 1:5 

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. Psalm 86:11 

Love the Lord your God heart! 

Image, Widow’s Mite – Ancient Roman Bronze Coins, by Royce Bair https://flic.kr/p/7kuEAk