2 Corinthians 13:14 – May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ…” What is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ? We commonly, and rightly, understand grace to be unmerited favor from God. What does “unmerited favor” mean? Simply that we don’t deserve, or merit, His grace. What is it the result of the Lord’s grace upon us. It means that we receive favor from Him. What does that mean? It means that we are moved from being enemies of God, which we all were at birth due to the sin passed down to us from Adam (Romans 5:12), to being daughters and sons of His. At birth we were all on a huge horizontal escalator (moving sidewalk) with the end of the ride (that is, death) being hell. Jesus came to change our final destination from hell to heaven. When one accepts Jesus as their personal Savior and Lord, Jesus takes us off that moving sidewalk that we all cannot get off of by our own ability. John 3:18 states “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” So we see that salvation from our Adam inherited damned destination is changed only through Jesus. Yet it is important to notice that those who reject Jesus stand (remain) “condemned already.” This is one of the verses that illustrates that every person born, even our own children, are all born infected and ravaged from sin. Because of this we are all born with an end destination of hell. I know, awful to think of, but we can thank Adam and Eve for that. But in the preceding verse we see that Jesus saves us from the path we were on. He snaps the chains of our bondage to that moving sidewalk, lifts us off of it and sets us on the moving sidewalk to Heaven. And the thing about it is that we don’t deserve it, but God has done it for us anyway.
Grace is the noun that describes the how God has given to us, though we have done nothing to deserve it, unmerited favor.
Remembering that all that God does comes from the essence of who He is (He is faithful to who He is [2 Corinthians 2:13]), then grace is an essential element of God. Grace lives in God. Digging deeper we know that a prime attribute of God, along with righteousness, is love. It is His love that is all encompassing, cannot be defeated, will never tire, and is intended for all created beings, but finds its home and bears fruit only in those who embrace it as given to the world through Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. Does God love the unsaved? Of course He does (John 3:16)! But Jesus clearly taught that unless the grace of God is received in the way God has ordained it to be received, it falls on the hard ground and bears no fruit, but if one has a soft open heart to God, then the love is received and bears fruit in accordance with the very nature of God. (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23) Everything God does is from who He is. Love and grace are part of who He is and entirely who He is. So as He looks on us from the core of His being He loves us and offers to us this unmerited favor that is called “grace.”
“and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The reference here is to our Father God. As we have previously reviewed. Those who love the Son have the love of the Father and those who do not love the Son do not have the love of the Father (1 John 2:23). Father God sent His Son Jesus to the earth suffer horribly and die so that we may have peace with God and therefore also have His love, His very self, live within us. How will we He allow anyone who rejects His Son, who has in obedience to Him suffered and died for all, to enter into His house? He will not! If anyone rejects our children, we know they are not welcome in our house.
The Holy Spirit is a full member of the One Holy Triune God. He is not less than God the Father or God the Son. All three, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all equally God in will, intent, power, divinity and stature. It is prevalent for modern Believers to be taught about God our Father and about Jesus our Savior and Lord, but not of the Holy Spirit and His works within us. Family, God does not give us two thirds of Himself, but He gives us the entirety of Himself. Do we tell God, who is all three, that we only want to love and fellowship part of Him but care not for the other third of Him. Let it be known that we cannot do that. God is One and He is not divided and no-one can divide Him. If we don’t love the Son then we will have neither the Father nor the Spirit. If we don’t love the Father then we don’t have the Son or the Holy Spirit and if we don’t love the Spirit, then we don’t have the Father or the Son. In fact, the Holy Spirit is the very proof that we belong to God through Jesus. (Ephesians 1:13) Family, do we love and talk (pray) to the Father and the Son but ignore the Holy Spirit, then we are in error and are losing out on having the fullness of the blessing of fellowship with God. Let’s remember that Jesus said that if a person speaks against Jesus that can be forgiven, but one who speaks against the Holy Spirit is in danger of never being forgiven (Matthew 12:31-32) Now Jesus spoke clearly here and yet many would say of this verse that it does not mean what Jesus clearly said. Yet these same people will quote that the golden rule of Bible interpretation as “When the plain sense of scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense…” Jesus was not speaking in a parable and was not giving an esoteric teaching. Also, nothing about what he here said contradicts anything else in scripture. He said do not speak against the Holy Spirit. With such a warning we are reminded of the preciousness, the holiness and the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Brothers and Sisters, if one of us does not personally know and fellowship with the Holy Spirit, well then, it’s time to start.
The whole and full triune God loves us, that is, every part of us. Shouldn’t we love the fullness of Him as He loves all that we are? All of the triune God has a role in every part of our salvation. Doesn’t God deserve us to love Him in full and not in part? Family, let us relish the grace of God and the full fellowship of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us praise God that we have the honor to do so. Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”