Loving Him Wholly

Four Loves, Two Camps

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was He gave a straight forward answer containing far reaching implications, “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and the whole of your strength (Mark 12:30).” Priority #1: love God with the whole of your self, every part. This is the stated commission of every Christian.

Unfortunately, in my history with the Church, I've seen few embody a lifestyle of loving God with the whole of all four of these aspects of their self. We're not loving, and there not living, fully. Though there are a myriad of different denominations within the Church the majority of them boil down to two camps. Some do a great job of loving God with their whole heart and mind and strength, but aren't so great at loving Him with their whole soul. The other camp, focuses on loving Him with their whole heart and soul with all their strength. It is a rare thing to find people who steadfastly pour each part of their self into loving God fully, but she is a powerfully invigorating woman to encounter. 

Two Camps

  I grew up in what I call the ‘strongly intellectual’ side of the Church. This camp is exceptionally good at constructing systems for understanding who God is and how He operates. Reason and the mind are regarded most highly in their counsels. As a result, solid theological teaching, and growing in understanding of God stands as the cornerstone they build their lives on. They love to share insights which elucidate one or another aspect of a passage or idea. Sunday school classes, education, correct thinking, broad literacy, and academic acclaim are their cherished prizes, solid rationalized system of thought are their safety and homes.

There is another camp within the Church who holds a different aspect of the self as king - the soul. They live on the other side of the road dividing these two camps in the Church. They are the  ‘strongly spiritual’ side. These people are passionate about experiencing God in personal ways, having spiritual encounters, and demonstrating charismatic gifts of the Spirit. Their teachings are often based more on feelings and loose ideas than critical or historical study of scripture. There is a deep seated distrust of the intellect in many of these communities coming from a fear that it will “quench the spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19).

Warring Camps

Growing up in the more Intellectual side of the Church one hears a lot of warnings about “those crazy Pentecostal folks who abuse spiritual gifts, are easily tossed around by their emotions, and are quickly taken in by bad teaching.” If I didn’t hear these words expressed in these exact terms, they were hinted at from all sides.  Such warnings were born out of wounds many people received in the land called Pentecostalism or stories of such wounds. Some were called “not Christian” because they didn’t speak in Tongues. Others saw crazy meetings that looked and sounded more like mobs in riot than peaceful, enlightening, uplifting gatherings of God’s people. All this and more spurred a deep distrust and even animosity towards the other "crazy" camp which served to drive them further away from each other. 

On the other hand, the "strongly spiritual" camp looks across the tracks to see stifled Christians over-analyzing everything while neglecting and distrusting the Holy Spirit. They recount with distain countless lost opportunities of connecting with God and doing His work those "excessively intellectuals" miss out on. They blame them for keeping Holy Spirit locked in the Cage of History, neglecting the dynamic miraculous power He wants to soak our everyday lives in. Backhanded remarks are made towards the stoic intellectuals in their ivory towers of academia with so little connection to the Spirit of God. All this and more produces a deep-seated distrust and underemphasis of the mind. 

The tragedy is that neither camp alone is experiencing the fullness of what Jesus wants to bless us with when he says, “Love the Lord with you whole HEART, whole SOUL, whole MIND and whole STRENGTH." Jesus didn’t say, "pick your favorite few, the ones you're inclined towards and that’ll be good enough to live out the fulness of what you were made for." He was laying out the recipe for a full life you were designed to live! A lot of people carry around the general idea that we should just go with our natural strengths, some are wired to feel, some to think. Play to your strengths and don't sweat your weaknesses. Jesus is has much more than that for you. He said to everyone Love God with all four parts, implying that we all have all four and should pour the WHOLE of all them into loving God. 

The four parts of the equation are like four pillars in a building; the Heart, the Soul, the Mind, and the Strength. If we seek to love God fully with each of these parts then the building of our Self will grow up straight and true. It will become a firm and solid house in which others will find peace and safety, joy and life. But, if we aren't putting equal energy into building each of these pillars you can see how quickly it will become tilted, unstable and either cease its upward growth and stagnate, or topple over in a heap from confusion. 

But I hear the rumblings of a beautiful work rollin' down the tracks our way. Minds are clearing out their cobwebs, Hearts are coming alive, Souls are emerging from arid lands, passion for the Great Father's heart and face cracks electric in the air. Curious, hungry children are searching the other camps for the nourishment their upbringing lacked. And the best new is, they're finding it and finally filling out their empty trousers; growing full strong. They see the segregation of spirit from mind as immaturity acting out of insecurity and are searching for more. They are the mergers of the two tribes. They are becoming whole and true lovers of God.