I start today with a threefold blessing prayed to the Trinity: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 12:14).
Mysterious as it is, Scriptures like this reveal that God exists as three persons of equal existence, deity, glory, and perfections; all in one Being. There is God the Father, God the Son (the Lord Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. And these three are One.
I take comfort that the Trinity is not a mystery to be solved. Yet it is an unfathomable wonder to be received by faith throughout all time and eternity. We cannot hope to plumb the Trinitarian depths. But in the apostle’s mind, we can draw comfort from them. For he reminds us that three of life’s sweetest and richest blessings—grace, love, and fellowship—trace to God’s generous triune heart.
This Scripture is what we call a benediction or prayer of blessing. One feature of this specific three-fold blessing is that it ends with the phrase, “…be with you all.” In other words, this prayer didn’t just ask that grace, love, and fellowship would be for us or to us, but that they would be with us as ever-present joys in our lives. Wherever we are, whether in a raging furnace, or hospital room, or cancer ward, or temptation zone, or shadowy valley, or divorce court, or funeral home, or unemployment office, or far-away land, these blessings bestowed by the Triune God will be with us there.
Paul opens by praying that the grace of the Son (the Lord Jesus Christ) would be with us. As is well known, grace is unmerited favor; a benefit, blessing, pardon, or promise that we do not deserve and have not earned. As for the grace of Christ, Paul describes it wonderfully in his second letter to the Corinthians—“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor; that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).
The grace of Christ is forgiving grace offered to us through our Lord’s self-sacrifice in dying as an atonement for our sins. And it is transforming grace; grace to renew us and change the way we live. So Paul wants the manifold grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to go with us everywhere.
But that is not all. He also asks that the love of the Father would be with us. How wonderful is that! It is one thing to receive grace. It is a far more wonderful thing to be loved. A vile criminal might receive a gracious pardon. But that does not mean that he will be loved. But God pardons us because he loves us, which is comforting all on its own.
God the Father is a vast ocean of love who invites us to plunge into the depths of his love. He invites us to share in the love that he and the Son and the Spirit have enjoyed with each other long before the world was made. And as with the Son’s grace, he wants us to know that wherever we go, his love will be with us there.
As for the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” he is the one who calls us into fellowship, or a shared life, with God and with his people. He creates and gives a mutually blessed life of fellowship, commonality, and community—both with God and with one another. By the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we have fellowship with God, and with everyone else who has fellowship with God (1 John 1:3).
So this is the marvelous heart of God for us. He is full of grace, abounding in love, and eager to fellowship.
I hope this comforts broken and weary hearts. It does mine. It makes me want to stay here, to bask in the love of my Triune God. And truly, I need to stay. Otherwise, I won’t survive my deep and unrelenting trials. No matter how all my trials turn out, I need to live in the fullness of all three of these blessings. The grace of Christ makes me forgiven and keeps me renewed. The love of the Father makes me glad and keeps me secure. And the fellowship of the Spirit makes me belong and keeps me connected. These are the truths that I need every single day.
And it is no less true for all who believe. May the grace, love, and fellowship of God be with you always. For these blessings add wonder and joy to each new day. They reshape how we think about God, and how we define ourselves.
Think about your first impression when you look in the mirror each morning. Does it occur to you—with both wonder and joy—that the person you see in the mirror is graced in, loved by, and in fellowship with the Almighty Trinity? I hope so. For in order to face life’s many trials, we need to know ourselves to be children of enormous privilege, favor, and joy. For that is, in fact, what we are—thanks to the triune God of heaven and earth!