“Grace Be with You”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”* (Romans 16:2) It sounds kind of like the ending of a message, but I want to follow this phrase and this thought. Essentially we’re looking at Brother Paul’s concluding remarks in his letter to the Romans, and I find this thought carried through his other letters:

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”* (1 Corinthians 16:23)

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”* (2 Corinthians 13:14)

“Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”* (Galatians 6:18)

“Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.”* (Ephesians 6:24)

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”* (Philippians 4:23)

“The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen.”* (Colossians 4:18)

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.”* (1 Thessalonians 5:28)

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”* (2 Thessalonians 3:18)

I feel like I have just been blessed. I want to think about just what is behind this benediction, or this greeting: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” It has enough value and enough substance that it was the way Brother Paul essentially concluded every one of his letters.

I looked up the word grace in this context. The word in this context means “the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life.”

The Divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life. Think about that. I started thinking about the things that Brother Paul had been writing in these letters. There is a lot of instruction, sometimes quite a bit of correction, sometimes exhortation, sometimes just laying a solid groundwork of understanding. And concluding each letter, this thought concerning what we need for all of this: “the Divine influence upon the heart.” It doesn’t mean much to know good things, to know true things, to believe them, to even want to follow them, unless we have the Divine influence on our heart.

I want to think a little bit more about what influence is. When we go different places, sometimes we notice this more than others. Some folks I work with do quite a bit of traveling, and one of them in particular was prone to pick up quite a bit of sayings and mannerisms of speaking from wherever she would travel. One time she had gone on a trip to England, and she started using quite a bit more British-sounding words for awhile. Another time she had gone back to Virginia and came back using a “Virginia accent”—it seemed sort of like a mixture of British and Southern. She would pick up other things from other places she had gone. She’d been to Florida and came back saying “y’all.” There was a certain susceptibility to the particular influence of how people spoke around her. You can look at another aspect of influence: when a little child has been around a lot of other little children, they seem to get excited after awhile—stirred up—maybe kind of wild. When they’ve been around a number of adults, that exerts a different kind of influence. You can look into your own life and see, when you have been around certain people, it has a certain influence on you. When you’ve spent time with a particular friend, sometimes people can see the influence. When you’ve been reading certain things, sometimes it carries an influence. When you’ve been singing, or listening to certain things, it carries an influence. And when you’ve been spending time with Jesus, it carries an influence.

“The Divine influence of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Think about that. To live godly we need the Divine influence. We need to spend the time with Jesus to have that influence in us. We need to allow that influence to have its work. We are always spending time with people and around different influences. We have some control over those kind of things, and we are called to exercise control to withdraw from evil influences and draw near to good ones. And within our control we can do a fair amount of that, though we’re not entirely able to avoid those things that aren’t a good influence. But even aside from physically being around those things, we can have attitudes of heart that help us. When we open ourselves to certain influences—we think, “I like this; this sounds good”—we open ourselves to it. Or maybe, “This doesn’t seem right,” and we shut ourselves up to it. I drive home from work along different routes. Sometimes I drive home on a route that has many billboards and signs along the road, and I have to close myself to many of those influences. On the other hand, there are other things I can see on the way home that are uplifting and have a positive influence. It may be the beauties of God’s creation, and occasionally, a billboard or sign. But the best influence of all is that influence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In a devotional I was reading, a brother was talking about a person living that more abundant life. They lived close enough to the Lord so that each thing they saw tended to be translated into a spiritual influence. For example, if they saw someone driving in an expensive and elegant car, they thought, “I’m going to be riding home in a glorious chariot to heaven someday.” If they saw somebody dressed up, looking very fine and good, they thought, “I want to have the precious robes of righteousness in my life.” There is a tendency and an ability that we can grow in, with the Lord’s help, to have things come to us through the influence of Jesus Christ. But beyond that, no amount of our own training is going to be enough. We need that direct influence of Jesus on us. I know when it’s strong and when it’s weak. I know when trials come, if there is a lot of the Divine influence, the trial gets smaller. Or somehow, by comparison, the power working in me is much larger. And when the trial gets larger, I need to go seek more of that Divine influence. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”

The other part of the definition of grace is “its reflection in the life.” When we say of someone, “God’s grace is upon them,” we’re seeing a reflection of the Divine influence. A reflection can come as a person yields themselves to the Divine influence. As time goes on, as God is working in our lives, the reflection gets better. There is less of us getting in the way, more of the Lord. It’s a precious thing, first of all, to get the Divine influence in our lives. And it’s still more precious, as that influence works in us, that more and more things that would hinder the reflection get removed out of our lives. I have habits, quirks of personality—personality traits maybe—various things that tend to block the reflection. I want the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be with me. I want it to be working in me. I need first of all to have the influence in my heart, then I want it to keep working, powerfully, until the reflection begins to get clearer. I want taken out of me those things that hinder that reflection. I want to be a blessing to others.

I remember a story of how one sister was working by the bedside of someone who was very sick. It was the burden of her heart that somehow God would reach this person. She had been just letting the Divine influence work in her, and finally she was stirred to speak, saying, “Do you ever have thoughts of God?” And the person responded, “How can I help but have thoughts of God, since you have been around?” That’s quite a testimony. I would like to have that testimony, not out of a sense of envy, or out of wanting it to be said of me in a Sunday School lesson. I just want the Divine influence, to help other people be drawn to God.

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Brother Paul desired that for each one to whom he was writing; not just the ministers, the pillars, the elders, or those that had been established a long time in the faith, but everyone who was listening, everyone who was receiving the letter. Another place he said, “grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.”* (Ephesians 6:24) To have the grace of our Lord working in us, we just need that desire and honesty in our hearts—“Lord, I don’t just want all this for some kind of outward impression. I just really need Your grace, I need what You’ve got. I need that Divine influence. That precious influence.”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I think about how it came to us. Of our Lord Jesus Christ: our Lord, our Master, the One who has the right to be influencing us. Our Lord Jesus: the Man who lived down here, His purpose to save His people from their sins. Our Lord Jesus Christ: the Messiah, the Deliverer, the Son of God. By His example we can receive His influence. By drawing near to Him, as a child to a parent, as a servant to a master, we can have that influence. By submitting to Him, as Lord and Master, we can allow that influence.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.