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“The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”

2 Corinthians 13:14

 

I cannot imagine a better way to end the year past and anticipate the new year to begin than by meditating upon “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost.

 

The Grace of Christ

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is the ground and foundation of all he has done and suffered for us. It was his grace that caused him to become our Surety in the covenant, caused him to assume our nature in his incarnation, caused him to live in obedience to God as our Representative, bringing in everlasting righteousness for us, and caused him to set his face like a flint from old eternity and made him willing to suffer the painful, shameful, ignominious death of the cross as our Substitute at Calvary. It is that same grace of Christ that inspires his advocacy and intercession for us in heaven, and directs the rule of his throne in daily providence for our good.

Be with you all” — Yes, his grace is always with us; but we do not always have an awareness of his grace. Do we? O blessed Savior, grant us an abiding awareness of your boundless, free grace! Spirit of God, cause us to walk in the sunshine of our Savior’s grace, ever aware of his smiling face, knowing the security of his embrace!

 

The Love of God

The love of God” our Father, eternal, everlasting, free, underserved, and sovereign, the distinguishing love of God, immutable and indestructible, is forever ours! It is his love that chose us, his love that gave his Son for us, his love that called us, and his love that keeps us.

 

“Could we with ink the oceans fill, and were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry!

Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky!”

 

      “Be with you all” — May it please our great God, whose infinite love is ever ours in Christ, cause us to live in the blessed awareness of his love; may it be shed abroad in our hearts by his Holy Spirit, that we may be rooted and grounded in love, comprehending its length and breadth, and depth and height, that we might be “filled with all the fulness of God!”

 

The Communion of the Holy Ghost

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God” our Father will be ours continually only as we enjoy “the communion of the Holy Ghost.” It is God the Holy Spirit who takes the things of Christ and shows them to us, giving us communion with our Father in our blessed Savior, and causing us to enjoy sweet communion with one another.

      “Be with you all”  —  O Holy Spirit, divine Comforter and Teacher, come,

 

abide upon your people, and grant us grace to walk together in sweet communion with our great, eternal, triune God in Christ, and with one another all the days of our lives. Let nothing deprive us of the boundless blessedness of this benediction here pronounced by you upon us! Blessed as we have been and are in the united mercies of the triune God, let this blessedness evermore be ours in the constantly increasing experience of grace. Perfect that which you have begun in us, for Christ’s sake.

 

A Reasonable Hope

Is it reasonable for you and me to expect our God to do such a great thing as this? Can we reasonably hope, upon good ground, to constantly enjoy “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost?” Can we rightly expect such precious, abiding tokens of goodness and good will from the Three-in-One God? As surely as the Book of God is true, we may.

      God our Father so loved us in Christ as to give him for us and to us. — “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall he not with him, also, free give us all things?” God the Son, our blessed Savior, so loved us that he gave himself for us. It was the zeal of his holy heart for his Father’s honor and the longing of his holy soul for our salvation that led him through all the work of redemption, and now engages his very Being in heaven. He will not be satisfied until he has brought all his redeemed home to glory; and there “he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.” God the Holy Ghost is unceasingly engaged to make the whole work effectual, by taking of the things of Christ and showing them to us. Yes, our God will give us such tokens of boundless good in the grace of Christ, in the love of God, and in the communion of the Holy Ghost here, and “in the world to come life everlasting!” — “The Lord will give grace and glory!” Open and close, O Lord, according to your own word, every day of our lives with “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost,” until grace is consummated in everlasting glory. Amen and Amen.

 

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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