The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Philippians 4:23

The grace of the God is the river in which we swim, the air that we breathe.  Paul has already described the mutual admiration and respect we naturally and rightly share for others who have also tasted from God’s extravagant provision (1:7).  And we’ve seen as we’ve meandered through this letter the implications of living with grace tinted spectacles in a world ruled by our loving Father God.

• Grace means we can be certain that God will finish what he’s started.
• Grace means that what we have to look forward to will always exceed what we have already experienced.
• Grace means that to live is Christ, but to die is gain.
• Grace means we can humble ourselves because God delights to exalt us.
• Grace means we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is so precious, awesome, beautiful, magnificent.
• Grace frees us to be genuinely concerned for the welfare of others.
• Grace means that we can be willing to risk our own lives in daring acts of love.
• Grace frees us from the trappings of our past, family, successes and failures and fills us with a desperate longing for God.
• Grace is addictive and causes us to hunger for the fullness of all that Jesus has promised.
• Grace means we can accept and work with those who we don’t always get on with.
• Grace prompts us to give generously to those in need.
• Grace enables us to cope regardless of temporary circumstances because we have all that we need in Christ.

Grace is river we swim in.  It is the bookends of this letter, this call to radical, gutsy joy in Jesus Christ.  It is all that we have.  It is all that we need.  Grace changes everything.

And, with a God as generous as ours, it’s never in short supply.