Seriously. It helps to do a little thinking about transfinite numbers.
A Zen monk was enlightened in the market place. A customer asked a butcher,"Which is the best cut of meat in the place?"
The butcher replied," Every cut is the best!"
I hope my wife knows I would lay down my life to protect hers. I hope my daughter knows I would lay down my life to protect hers. This Easter, when a death-threat was phoned to our church and I was asked to assume security duties, I hope the whole congregation would have known, had we told them, that I would lay down my life to protect theirs.
My whole approach to court-room security included as a defining element that, if the absolute worst happened, I would take a bullet for the judge.
So to whom do I give my all?
Perhaps like Eskimos and their many words for snow, you are lobbying for more words for
“ALL?”
Sorry. I don’t think the Heavenly dictionary has more than one meaning for “All.”
Our English usage is rather sloppy about it. God looks at the heart.
He demands first place, first and foremost and in largest measure 100% all.
By that I mean, He certainly allows and supports intimate and intense family relationships.
However, did you ever read
A SEVERE MERCY?
I think C.S. Lewis wrote the forward.
The individuals as young adults met and ended up marrying . . . reading every book the other had ever read. They were consumed by each other—it would be hard to describe a marriage where two were more united—particularly after becoming Christians but even before.
They exhaustively processed each day, their experiences, thoughts, feelings etc. with each other routinely.
Becoming Christians sort of interposed God between them where there had been nothing nor anyone else before.
God allowed the wife to contract and die of cancer.
Hence the title: A SEVERE MERCY.
Which . . . ultimately, it was.
I think Christians of all flavors play far tooooooooo loose and sloppy, shallowly with such concepts and truths as well as such language.
God REALLY DOES REQUIRE ALL OF US.
Certainly we are incapable of giving Him our all in this flawed world within our flawed skin and carcasses.
Yet, at every decision point, GOD IS WATCHING—WHICH DIRECTION WILL THE DECISION GO?
TOWARD GOD AND LIFE ETERNAL OR TOWARD ANYTHING ELSE AND DEATH ETERNAL?
HE REALLY DOES DEMAND OUR ALL. He really does not respond flatteringly to us when we compormise His supreme priority deserving our ALL.