The apostle John, in the first chapter of his gospel, wrote: “So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son” (john 1:14).

The idea that God was among us is more important than any of us can absorb. If it is true, then we can only scratch the surface of the thought that the little one bundled up in that crude stable manger was in fact our Creator. Yet this is the claim of the Bible:

• God was in a human body. The most astounding miracle of all history is that God became a man. This is the amazing reality of Christmas: God came in human flesh!
• God lived among us. Jesus did not come to observe life. He came to experience it. He walked on the ground he himself had created.
• God showed his goodness to us. Jesus didn’t just come, live a secluded and easy life, and then return to a better place. He lived here experiencing the conditions, sufferings, and temptations we all live with.

How the Creator Loves

In Revelation 1:5–6, the apostle John wrote: “All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.”

John also wrote: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him” (1 john 4:9).

From other Scriptures we learn more of what this love means. For example, consider the following:

He released us from our sins by dying in our place. This is the assertion of Hebrews 2:9: “What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position ‘a little lower than the angels’; and because he suffered death for us, he is now ‘crowned with glory and honor.’ Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone.”

He removed the barrier that prevented us from enjoying a relationship with God. If we believe what the Bible says, God has not abandoned us; we have abandoned him.

According to the Bible, the Creator of the universe went to the cross and died for our sins so that we could be made right with God. “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 john 4:10).

What a powerful thought—the Creator hung on a cross, dying for people who were living on death row. He gave his life so that others could live not on their own merits but by the merits of the perfect One who died on their behalf.

He served as our high priest. In the Old Testament, there were three offices in the leadership of the kingdom of Israel: king, prophet, and priest. The New Testament not only calls Jesus our Creator, but our King, our Prophet, and our Priest. We do not need any other mediator between God and us except Jesus Christ.

• • “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (acts 4:12).
• • “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory” (romans 5:1–2).
• • “So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Hebrews 4:14–16).

These thoughts from the Bible tell us that our Creator himself died for our sins to bring us back into the relationship lost in Eden. That’s the essence of Jesus’s words: “The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost” (luke 19:10).

What if it’s true that the Creator cares for me?

Several years ago the American public was introduced to a television program called Who Wants To Marry a Multimillionaire? In actuality, it amounted to little more than a beauty pageant with only one judge—a proposing groom hidden behind a screen. The prize was marriage to a multimillionaire.

The show contained all the usual trappings of a pageant.

The pack of “contestants” was whittled down from thousands to the fifty who made the show, to ten semifinalists, then five finalists. It ended with a wedding right on stage. (Predictably, the prenuptial agreements were signed beforehand.)

The entire event seemed bizarre and surreal, but it provides a window into human nature. One of the contestants said, “It’s really not about the money.” And the multimillionaire stated, “We are all here because we have been unlucky at love, and we are hoping something magical will happen.”

Our initial reaction may be to dismiss those assertions. But if we take them at face value, we catch a glimpse of human beings desperate for a relationship that offers to meet their needs, however idealized it may be.

We all long to give and receive love, to experience and share intimacy, to care and to be cared for, to enjoy someone’s full attention. Yet so many of us go through life without ever entering into a satisfying relationship.

But it’s not just the need for any relationship that characterizes us; it’s the need for a meaningful relationship with our Creator.

According to the Bible, Jesus was God’s plan to restore our relationship with Him (john 6:44; 1 john 4:10).

In his book The Call, author Os Guinness writes:

We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God—which is another way of saying that our seeking will always fall short unless God’s grace initiates the search and unless God’s call draws us to Him and completes the search.

If the chasm is to be bridged, God must bridge it. If we are to desire the highest good, the highest good must come down and draw us so that it may become a reality we desire. From this perspective there is no merit in either seeking or finding. All is grace. The secret of seeking is not in our human ascent to God, but in God’s descent to us. We start our searching, but we end up being discovered. We think we are looking for something; we realize we are found by Someone. As in Francis Thompson’s famous picture, “the hound of heaven” has tracked us down.⁴

C. S. Lewis looked back on his journey to faith in Christ and discovered that “God closed in on me.” He wrote, “Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about ‘man’s search for God.’ To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.”⁵

Yes, the seeking is real, but who seeks whom? The Creator of the universe is seeking you!

The great prime minister of the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper, declared,

“There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”⁶

As the Creator, everything belongs to him and he is claiming that which he himself has made.

⁴ Os Guinness, The Call, pp. 13–14.

⁵ C. S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy, p. 179.

⁶ Abraham Kuyper, Sphere Sovereignty, cited in James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham

Kuyper, A Centennial Reader, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998, p. 488.