God sent you because he loved the world

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

So try this as one application:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his son/daughter, [your name here] in and for His unique Son Jesus Christ, that whoever believes in Jesus should not perish but have eternal life.

Blasphemous? Misleading? Lets look at it.

  1. First of all, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to make amazing claims for Christians that Christians themselves might be tempted to reserve for Jesus alone. One of my favorite examples:

    Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.

    That’s Jesus speaking to the Church in Thyatira. Psalm 2 prophesies Jesus and you! Go figure.

  2. Jesus presented Israel with a calling that he took on himself as Israel’s King. Jesus’ self-designation, “Son of Man” was itself first used for Israel (Psalm 80). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly called on hearers to be true Israelites (“sons of your Father in heaven,” “city set on a hill” [Jerusalem], “Do not even Gentiles do the same,”)by turning the other cheek–a path that he followed to the cross himself. He called on his hearers to take up their crosses and follow him.

  3. After his death and resurrection Jesus renewed this call on his followers to accept his own mission (albeit in a new and derivative way to his own work), “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

  4. And the work of the Church in going to the nations is described as Jesus going to the nations: “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” Thus we read in Ephesians 2 how Paul describes the Gospel going to those who never witnessed Jesus in the flesh. The evangelists going out is Jesus going out.

So God loves us and sends us in Christ’s mission. He gives us for the sake of the world–our part of it, at least.

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