Groom and bride

It is impossible to keep Love to oneself. If we are created to be receivers of His Love, then we are also created to be givers of that Love.

So God not only has in mind to create beings on whom he can lavish his love from a distance. He has in mind to create beings who can in turn release his Love, as he does. Ultimately God's desire is for us be like him in terms of his character – defined by Love. As we are filled with his Love, he desires for us to release it, like a vessel that, once filled, overflows. His desire is for us to be saturated in Love, just as He is; to live out his Love, just as he does; to be motivated by Love, just as he is.

He has in mind to create beings he can include into the circle of love that he is, into the perfect relationship that already exists between the three expressions of God. Only in this way can the created being express the love that is God! God's ultimate desire is for us to be a part of who he is, so filled with himself and his love that in a mysterious and incomprehensible way we become an extension of who He is, united and enmeshed with him, one with him as he is one, his bride!!

Relationship with God as God intended is so much more than a master - servant, or even Father – child relationship. It is actually lover and beloved, groom and bride! This image of groom and bride is a recurring theme all through Scripture.

For some people this might sit a little uncomfortably (it did with me for ages!) The claim that God wants us, wants me, to become one with him, to become part of who he is – is that not heretical and even blasphemous? Is that not saying that somehow we become God?

Let us be really clear here, lest we be misunderstood. We are not saying that we become God. We are not claiming that man becomes like God in terms of God’s power and his attributes. God is not inviting us to be omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient! What we are saying is that the God of Love invites us to become so full of his love, so saturated and so defined by it, that we too become defined by the Love that defines who he is. Jesus himself prays (John 17): “I pray ... that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us ... that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me.”

It is when we begin to let the truth of this sink in that our relationship with God takes on a new meaning. Relationship with God becomes a fulfilling, exciting and utterly intoxicating adventure!