Grace

Many people tell me that time passes more quickly as you get older. I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but from where I sit I think they’re right.

Can you believe that it’s the year 2019? Do you remember when everyone was stressing over Y2K? That’s been nearly two decades.

What’s happened in your life in the last few years?

Did you send a child to kindergarten for the first time? Send one to college?

Get a new job? Change careers?

Perhaps you went through a divorce or lost someone you love.

The way Paul closes Philippians is relevant to the passing of time, I believe:

Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit (Philippians 4:21-23).

In the 1,960 years since Paul dictated this letter from a Roman jail, the world has changed in many ways. Nations have risen and fallen. Wars have been fought, and millions of people have lived and died.
But in so many ways, things are still the same.

We look at a world that’s not too different from the one Paul saw from his imprisonment. People are laughing and crying and dreaming and living and dying.

And what the world needs now—what we need now—is the same thing they needed.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We still live in a fallen world, and we’re a fallen people, but the hope Paul extended to the church at Philippi is the same hope God extends to us today.

He offers us hope through his grace, which is how he finished the letter.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” That’s yours no matter how many changes happen in your life, and I hope you fully embrace it.—Chuck

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