656 Grace, Love and Fellowship - 2 Corinthians 13:14

What do you hope happens as a result of your life?

Hi I am Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast.

I often talk about what we bring to the world or what we ship to the world. Our job as followers of Jesus Christ is to make him visible in our world.

And today I landed on this passage that's at the end of 2nd Corinthians. 2nd Corinthians 13:14, "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Paul, the apostle, is writing his second letter to the Corinthians, and this is the closing statement of that letter.

These are Paul's last words. And, , it's a great blessing. You'll notice little variation in this passage among translations. I was reading from the English Standard Version. Grace is unmerited favor. Jesus saved us by his grace. God the Father orchestrated this entire story because he created us and he loves us and he gave us the holy spirit to establish the relationship with us that we broke.

This sentence is a fitting closing for the note that Paul has written to the Corinthians. In fact today, I want to pray this for the people who listened to this podcast for you today. I pray that you will experience more of the grace of our Lord jesus. I hope that you will sense his willingness to do what is best for you no matter what it costs.

The same is true of God the father. He's been loving us since he had the idea to create us. And he loves us even today with a love that will never end. And finally we have the holy spirit, who's our friend and our helper. The person who's Jesus has helper. He's the one who comes alongside us to help us make a difference.

He becomes our best friend if we will let him. Instead of searching for friends among people, let's lean into the friendship with the Holy Spirit. We live in a broken world that wants to isolate us and separate us, but nothing can separate us from this love of God from this grace, love, and fellowship relationship that the Trinity has established with us.

What is your strategy to take the grace and love and fellowship of God into the world today? We talk about this and Follower of One through our five daily activities. And those activities are pray, appreciate others, know what you believe, serve others, and speak for yourself. We get to take our faith into the world every day, no matter what your job is, no matter where you are.

You can take the grace and the love and the fellowship, your relationship with the holy spirit and with God, you can take that relationship into the world and let it transform the relationships that you have with people. God can show you how to bring more of his grace, love, and fellowship into your world today and it will make him more visible.

It all begins with a prayer. And often we talk about that prayer that punching in. And it's telling God, "here I am. God, would you put me to work today? Help me to remember your grace, your love and your fellowship, and distribute those things into the world around me. My job is to take your faith that you've given me and put it in the world. I want to take the life that you've given me and stick it in the world." Others will see you and it will make a difference in their lives. And they might even ask us, "why are we doing this?" Which is where we get an opportunity to just speak. And do you use I and me statements.

Today, I want to challenge you to do this activity in your world. You can join us on the next marketplace mission trip, where we practice this. We do it in our online community and there's no additional cost or anything for the mission trip. You can check out a two week exercise to take your faith into the workplace by going to https://community.followerofone.org. Create a profile there, and we will invite you to join us on the next marketplace mission trip, the two week activity, where we practice putting our faith into the workplace.

Thanks so much for being a marketplace minister and for being a follower of Jesus Christ. We are excited to partner with you as we make God visible in our world on a daily basis. Thanks very much.