During the month of November members of the Word Made Flesh team share reflections on partnership and challenge us to move beyond our current understanding of what it means to be partners with one another to the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel in word and deed.

John 3:16 says, “Yes, God so loved the world as to give the Only begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life.” We’ve heard this verse so many times, that we ‘re jaded by it and assume that there is nothing new in the words, but the reality is that the majority of people don’t pay attention to what is fundamental in this text.

God so loved the world so much as to give the Only begotten One, that whoever believes may not die but have eternal life. Try to imagine yourself in the same situation. Could you love someone so deeply that you would have the capacity to give the life of your only child in the place of the one you love? Also consider that in giving of your child, you’re dealing with the imperfect human condition, a condition of imperfect faithfulness and insincere promises. Yet God’s sacrifice was given to pull us out of sin and eradicate sin from our lives and in the end save us from hell. Are you beginning to understand the magnitude of this idea?

Obviously as humans God’s sacrifice is beyond our understanding. God alone is able to give the life of the Only Begotten One to save us from the snare of the enemy. We now have a notion of the fidelity which God wants to have with us, to exercise a partnership of faith, in our answering the call on our lives.

When God sent the Only Begotten to die for us, we have been invited into partnership by participating in the same practice, to send “ours” to those who are spiritually dead, with the objective of proclaiming God and through this proclamation, reviving them. This is a partnership which is destined for success because it is God who guides and orients with steadiness down this altruistic path.  We needn’t fear because the practice of mission and proclaiming the gospel works in precise coordination with the established will and plan of the Father.

The Lord explains this very clearly in the verse following in which John writes, “God sent the Only Begotten into the world not to condemn the world, but that through the Only Begotten the world might be saved.” This idea is more deeply defined in the concept of the “Creator of the heavenly luminaries,” because God is both exact and omniscient. James says, “Every worthwhile gift, every genuine benefit come from above, descending from the creator of the heavenly luminaries, who cannot change and is never in the shadow” (James 1:17).  Maybe we can draw on this as the only definition of the purpose of the coming of Christ, that he came into this world to save it and not to condemn it. Our foundational and vital mission is to take the gospel to all of creation, without regard to condition or circumstance, but in partnership and unity. As members of the body of Christ, we serve so that no part of this body will be lost.   

Partnership in mission is a methodology that we must assume. Despite surmounting adversities, partnership must be explored, and not simply observed or analyzed. We should not only treat and bandage the injuries and pains of society, but we must seek a cure for all people and nations, recognizing that only Jesus is the way the truth and the light.

A servant of God, Esdrianne Cohen co-authored this entry with her husband Alex. She selflessly serves her family, the children at Projeto Vidinha, and Word Made Flesh Brazil’s friends on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. She loves photography and chocolate!