Full confession: I am not a hugger. Or at least, I wasn’t always. My family loved each other deeply, but we were not physically affectionate. My parents showed love through acts of service and quality time, and I never doubted how much I was loved.

Then I married my husband. Every time we visited his parents, my mother-in-law hugged us on arrival and hugged us again on the way out. I do not know whether she felt me stiffen, but I “braced for the embrace” with every visit.

Years later, in the middle of a rough day at work, I caught a glimpse of my ministry assistant standing in my office door. In her sweet twenty-something innocence, she said, “I know you aren’t much of a hugger, but you seem like you need a hug today.”

That day, something shifted in me. How had I missed this blind spot? Was I oblivious to a

common gesture of affection, or just afraid of getting too close to people? I silently wondered if I was like the feisty raccoon in Elf when Buddy the Elf asked, “Does somebody need a hug?” I decided to learn the art of hugging and began to consider what an embrace can teach us about how Christ draws near to us.

Hugs say a great deal without words. We hug people we haven’t seen in a long time as a greeting. We hug someone when they leave. We hug when someone is hurting, and we hug in moments of joy. Ecclesiastes 3:5 speaks of “a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing.” But what does it mean to truly embrace Christ?

Embrace isn’t a word we often use when talking about our relationship with Christ, but perhaps we should. To embrace Christ is to receive Him by faith, to know and treasure His Word, to welcome His presence in the ordinary moments of life, and to rest in His love and promises even during difficult days.

1. You Embrace Christ by Knowing Him in His Word

Even the most hug-prone among us very rarely embrace strangers. Why? Because an embrace assumes a relationship.

Many people know facts about Jesus, but knowing Christ is more than that. It begins when He graciously draws us to Himself and we receive eternal life through faith. From there, our knowledge of Him and our affection for Him deepen as we meet Him in His Word.

Hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on Scripture do not earn us greater access to God. They help us know more deeply the God who has already made Himself known. Jesus told His disciples in John 6:63, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” When we know His Word, we know more of His character, His ways, and His will. When we allow Scripture to shape not only our hearts but our minds, we embrace who Jesus is. And that is an embrace I want to experience every day.

The more clearly we see Christ in His Word, the more beloved He becomes to us.

2. You Embrace Christ by Welcoming Him Into Your Ordinary Days

An embrace says you are glad someone is here. That is a beautiful picture of growing in Christ and becoming more aware of His presence in ordinary days. When we embrace Christ in the mundane, we grow in gratitude for who He is in our lives.

God is always present with His people. Whether you are washing dishes, changing diapers, commuting to work, sitting beside an aging parent, or having a difficult conversation, you are never outside His presence or beyond His care. Through His Spirit, Christ is with His people in the mundane as surely as He is with us in the monumental.

The Christian life isn’t merely longing for Christ’s presence in the future. It is learning to delight in His presence today while holding tightly to the promise that our faith will one day become sight. The Christ we know through His Word and trust by faith is the Christ we will see face to face.

3. God Embraced You Long Before You Embraced Him

One of the greatest parables Jesus told is in Luke 15. Most of us call it the parable of the prodigal son, but a better title might be “The Running Father.” After a man’s son has wrongfully claimed and then squandered his inheritance from his father, he begins to journey home, destitute, prepared to apologize to his father and ask for mercy. Luke 15:20 says, “But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.”

The son does not clean himself up and earn the embrace. The father sees him coming, runs to him, and receives him with compassion. It is a beautiful glimpse of the Father’s heart toward repentant sinners, and of how far God has gone to bring sinners home. God sent His Son to live the life we could not live, die the death we deserved, and rise again so that all who trust in Him can be forgiven and reconciled to God.

In other words, we don’t embrace Christ to convince Him to come near. We embrace Christ because God has already come near to us.

4. You Can Embrace Christ When You Need Comfort

Sometimes an embrace is less about celebration and more about what we need when grief arrives and the tears come.

There are times when we long for the physical presence of Jesus. We wish He would sit beside us in the hospital room or wrap His arms around us when a goodbye creates distance between us and the people we love. Yet His presence is no less real because we cannot touch Him.

Hebrews 4:15–16 reminds us that Jesus is our High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. Because of Christ, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, knowing we will receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We draw near to Christ by faith, trusting that the One who saved us will also sustain us amid hardship.

Perhaps that is what I had to learn all those years ago: An embrace requires us to draw near enough to receive what is offered.

Christ offers more than a momentary embrace. He offers Himself. He calls sinners to come to Him, weary believers to rest in Him, and His people to abide in Him. Through His Word and by His Spirit, we learn to know and delight in the One who first loved us.

So, embrace Christ by faith. Know Him in His Word. Treasure His presence in the ordinary. Run to Him in your grief. And rest in the grace of the One who has already drawn near to you.

Even if you aren’t much of a hugger.

If you liked this article, check out the related resources linked below!

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Author Bio

Kelly D. King is the Women's Minister at Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City and an Assistant Professor of Christian Ministry at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where she teaches the Ministry to Women courses. She is the author of Ministry to Women: The Essential Guide for Leading Women in the Local Church. You can connect with her at kellydking.org.

Related Resources:

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