He Can't Help Himself

Love is driven to express itself. Love demands an outlet. To be fulfilled, Love needs to give itself away. In a very real sense, the One who loves is driven to express and indulge Himself in the object of His love. In the human world, when you love a baby, it's hard not to want to hold and cuddle that little one and kiss all over the little baby's sweet face. 

You can tell me that's all for the baby's benefit, but I won't believe you. You know as well as I do that you get a huge thrill out of loving on that child. 

If that's true for us, think how much more it must be true for Him. 1 John 4:8 tells us that God IS Love. The Greek word in this instance is Agape. Since Agape Love is the constantly flooding and bubbling over essence of His very Being, He is overwhelmed by His own Love's demand to be expressed and indulged. He can't help Himself, He can't stop Himself. He wouldn't stop Himself if He could. It would be like asking water to not be wet.

For the Lord God Creator to stop expressing His Love would be to deny His very essence. And because His Love is always bubbling over and gushing in floods, He is always looking for more objects so His Love can be indulgently expressive. That's the satisfaction His heart needs.

In us, He is giving His heart expression and outlet. He wants what's good for you because He loves you so very much, absolutely no question. This is about you, yes, but I've come to think that it's even more about Him. Romans 11:36 and Colossians 1:16 tell us that Everything was made through Jesus, by Jesus, and for Jesus, right? So why oh why does He keep putting up with all of the grief and heartache the human race gives Him?

Here's how I see it. This isn't a new revelation, but the depth and layers of it are new, at least to me.

What keeps driving Him forward is an overwhelming desire for more and more souls in whom He can eternally indulge His own immeasurable overflow of love. That immeasurable overflow of love is not at the core of His essence. It's not at the core; it is the core. Love is not just an attribute He has adopted or that He has chosen for Himself. It's what He's made of! 

There's bound to be a better way to say this, but it's almost as though Love has adopted Him! I know saying it that way is taking a lot of poetic license...a lot!...so don't take that as a theological statement. I'm just being poetically descriptive in a metaphorical metaphysical sort of way, sort of...

I'm talking today about His plan to indulge Himself in His redeemed, reconciled, bought-by-the-blood-of-Jesus, Bride of Christ people. They meet the one requirement: everyone in heaven must be fully pure and holy through Jesus’ purchase, His cleansing, His transformation and His Lordship…anyone that’s not won’t be able to stay in His full and open presence.  

But I don't think that His desire to express and indulge His heart of love limits itself to the Bride of Christ. I don't pretend to know what all that involves or how it works out in His infinite creativity, but this I believe: the overflowing outpouring of His heart has no stopping point.

It can't be put in a corral. It can't be limited, measured, restrained, or boxed up in any way. We can't draw a line around it. His love is not limited by my limited understanding. I can only hope to somewhat put words to it. 

He can't help Himself. His heart must find more and more people in whom He can forever indulge and pour out His overflow of love.

The overflow of His heart can't be measured. It can be said that He is bursting with too much love to stop. Again, He can't help Himself. No matter how much love He pours out, it's never enough for Him. His heart of love must be expressed, it must be indulged. It's about relationship, yes, but saying that He wants "relationship" with you doesn't say it nearly strongly enough, not even close. It's much much deeper, bigger, broader, and wider than "relationship". Our concept of relationship, at its best and biggest, only hints at His concept of relationship. 

He is driven to indulge Himself...yes, indulge Himself...in you, giving you all the love and attention that you can handle.

But it still won't be enough for Him. His heart will still crave more and more living beings in whom to indulge His love. I believe that His craving for more outlets for His love will go on forever.