EmmDev 2025-10-08 [Partners in Mission (Month of Mission 2025)] He is concerned about our Suffering.

He is concerned about our Suffering.

The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.... (Exodus3:7-8)

Saints, as from the creation narrative, God has always been concerned for humanity. When Adam and Eve got themselves entangled in sin of disobedience by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen2:17), and found themselves naked, God came looking for them. God's reason for asking "where are you?" was to cover their nakedness. God did not abandon them in their shame. God was looking for a relationship with them. He followed them until they could answer from where they were hiding.

In Egypt, God heard the cries of His people. Though they had been enslaved for 400 years, He had not forgotten His covenant. Exodus 3:7 says, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering." Again, God is concerned about suffering and moves toward His children. The mission begins with God hearing and seeing the affliction of humanity and coming down to deliver his people out. This month of mission I want you to know that God hears, and God sees, and He is concerned. God always takes the first step to save us - see His hand and hold unto it!

When God hears and sees our suffering, he always comes ready to cover the nakedness and to save us from the shame of sin. In verse 8 He says, "So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians..." God's mission has always started with His initiative. He takes the first step. And yet, He chooses to partner with us - just as He called Moses to be part of His rescue plan. Today, He calls us to join Him in His ongoing mission of redemption.

In Christ, God came down rather, "he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death--- even death on a cross!" (Phil 2:7-8). Saints, the Cross carried the suffering meant for humanity. The Cross that was a sign of a curse, pain, and suffering has been transformed into the sign of salvation by the One who hung on it, Jesus the Messiah.

In Christ, God invites us to be His partners in mission to tell the world that He has come. "...And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" (Rom 10:14). Saints, in this month of mission, may we remember: God still sees. God still hears. God still comes down. And God still calls. Will you answer?
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Lentikile Mashoko is a minister at SAINTS Presbyterian Church in Lyttelton, Centurion, within the bounds of Tshwane Presbytery. He is a husband and a father of three.

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