May The Grace Of Our Lord Jesus Be With You

December 1, 2017

May The Grace Of Our Lord Jesus Be With You

All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen.

Romans 16:27

Read: Romans 16:17-27

Paul closes his letter with a caution not to put our faith into the hands of other people. But we have pastors and preachers and teachers in our churches; is Paul telling us not to listen to them? Certainly not! Paul is admonishing us to always and everywhere check what we hear and what we are being told. In Romans 10:17, Paul taught us that our faith comes by hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ. Therefore all teaching should be measured by how Christ-centered it is, hence Paul closed his admonishment with the benediction, “May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you” (Romans 16:20b).  We all need good information about the world we live in, and we have many places where we can go for that information. When I go to church I want to hear about Jesus. Nothing more -- nothing less.

My Takeaway: When I read Paul’s benediction in verse 27, I recall the prayer in Psalm 19:14: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” I want to live my life, every day, every place I go, with this Psalm embedded in me. When I do, then at the end of the day I will say with a glad heart, “All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen”

P.S. I have been challenged and renewed in my faith after spending the last three months with the Apostle Paul and his letter to the church in Rome. I hope my meditations on the daily readings have been a blessing to you as well. Next week, I will begin a month-long series applicable to the seasons of Advent and Christmas. On January 1, I will start a new series on the four letters of Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2017 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.