“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen

This is the customary salutation by Paul.  He emphasizes “grace” in his salutations.  Paul began with “grace” (verse 3), and he ends with “grace.”

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

Php 4:23, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

The word “our” unites the readers and the greeters in one corps of faith.  They have the common spiritual bond of “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is our Lord Jesus Christ who bestows grace on us. 

Philemon needed the grace of God to forgive Onesimus.  It was not possible for Philemon to do this in his own power. 

The New Testament does not record the outcome of Paul’s appeal to Philemon for Onesimus.  We know that the Roman Empire released Paul from prison, so we presume that he kept his word and went to Colosse.

PRINCIPLE: 

God’s grace sustains us in any situation.

APPLICATION:

God’s grace is available to us all.  We need it to sustain our Christian lives.  Grace provision in Jesus Christ is sufficient to meet any need we have for living the Christian life.