Sabbath: Grace, Love, and Fellowship
Daily Lesson for Sabbath 19th of September 2026
Image © Pacific Press
Read for This Week’s Study
2 Corinthians 8:9; Romans 16:20; 1 John 4:8-11; 2 Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 2:1-2; Galatians 4:4-6.
Memory Text:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14, ESV).
Paul closes 2 Corinthians by re-emphasizing essential elements addressed in his letters. He does this through five imperatives (2 Corinthians 13:11).
The first imperative, “Rejoice” (ESV), recalls earlier texts in the letters.
The second imperative, “Strive for full restoration” (NIV), translates a single word in Greek (katartizō), which appears here and in 1 Corinthians 1:10.
The third, “Encourage one another” (NIV), resumes 2 Corinthians 1:3-7. Paul begins and closes his second letter with encouragement. We receive God’s encouragement in order to encourage others (2 Corinthians 1:4,6).
The fourth and fifth imperatives, “Be of one mind, live in peace” (2 Corinthians 13:11, NKJV), are a call to unity. This atmosphere of joy, restoration, encouragement, unity, and peace is the condition for the presence of God, “the God of love and peace” (2 Corinthians 13:11, ESV). It results from our triune God’s work in the human heart (2 Corinthians 13:14).
Grace, love, and fellowship result from the work of the triune God for us. These three Christian features promote an atmosphere characterized by God’s presence.
When I am working with electronics, I often wish I had three hands; two to hold the electronic bits together and a third to wield the soldering iron. It would make things so much easier. If I had been there at creation, I might have made that suggestion to God. However, God knew the importance of three arms in our spiritual lives. He combined grace, love, and fellowship as his own characteristics. And that is a lot better than three hands and a soldering iron.
How often do we finish a church service with the benediction: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen”. Most of us are probably thinking that it is time the service is over and we’re hungry and can already smell the potluck lunch warming up. But we need to pause and remind ourselves that if grace, love and fellowship are the defining characteristics of God, and we are created in his image, then we have the responsibility of sharing those characteristics with each other.
Maybe sit near someone you don’t like during the potluck lunch and rise to the challenge. God has not given us three spiritual arms for nothing!
Amen well articulated. How often do we extend grace to people even in our conversations do we give each other benefit of the doubt. God is so nuanced he filters into our communion with each other
This last week we found the sensor wire that tells the controller to open the gate automatically when the car gets near the gate. We discovered that someone had navigated the weed eater to close to the wire that went to the sensor. Fortunately, the hardware store had a butane soldering iron and my wife holding the wires together and I soldering, with 4 hands, 3 hands were not enough, the fourth hand to feed the solder. then reconnecting the wires to the controller. it was joyful to see the gate open automatically to exit when our vehicle came near. When the 5 wires arrived at the controller the green, black, and the silver wire all attached together to provide one function, I called them Fellowship. And called red wire love, and the white wire grace. It took all to make the gate open. Did you get to read the allegory in last week’s teachers edition? What did the GPS represent?
Love your illustration, John. It’s a good one and has an important message for us. I did read the illustration about the ranger and GPS. I know what the message for that one is too. But I have to add that it fell a bit flat for me because there are quite a few stories of motorists using their GPS to drive from Sydney to places like Broken Hill. In spite of the fact that there is a fully tar-sealed road with a line down the middle all the way between the two cities, their GPS has led them out into the middle of deserts, along rough bush tracks, and they have had to be rescued. I picked up a guy in the rugged bush area just to the west of us. His car had run out of petrol. I asked him where he was going and when he told me, I could not believe him. I asked him how he got there and he told me he followed his GPS! There is a lesson in that one too but its a different one to the illustration in the teacher’s quarterly.
Yes, I have had the lady in the smart phone lead us to the other side of town and the second experience the lady in the smart phone directed us through residential area, of which I ignored, cause I was familiar with the area enough to take the freeway, thus making it for our appointment in time.
Bench Jewelers use a tweezer type holder called a third hand. They’re not expensive. They don’t take up a lot of space. They are quite handy.
The Corinthian church caused Paul more problems than any other church that he established. However, Paul chose not to love them as they were but as they would be in Christ Jesus. This reveals the depth of God’s grace, love, and fellowship, which are beyond our comprehension. The more we understand His love, the more we are drawn into His presence and transformed by His grace. As Scripture says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s love sees and recognizes our past, the ugliness of our souls in sin, our anger, pain, and bitterness that seek to control us, yet He does not abandon us in our brokenness.
Instead, God in His grace reaches out to the gutter of our lives, lifts us up, cleanses our wounds, heals our broken hearts, and embraces us as His own. His grace does not affirm us in our sin but lovingly calls us into transformation and holiness. In Christ, we discover that our past does not have the final word, our failures do not define our worth, and our brokenness does not disqualify us from belonging to His family. This same grace calls us to extend patience, forgiveness, and love to others, seeing not merely who they are today but who they can become through the transforming power of Christ. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).
Grace, love, and fellowship, how sweet it is to experience these attributes of Christianity. When it is experienced in the church it is a foretaste of heaven. These things we have freely received from God, and therefore we should freely give them to others. Relationships require a healthy serving of them. A Spirit led and empowered church will have these in abundance, it will be in it’s DNA. Is your church such a place, are we such people? If not, then we need to pray and work towards those attributes. Remember that we are either a thermostat or a thermometer. We can set the temperature in our churches and relationships or we can be a reflection of the environment. I pray that by the power of the indwelling Christ we would establish the environment so that together we as well as our churches will be people and places of grace, love, and fellowship.
On the fourth and fifth, “Imparatives,” we need to also “Include” the Matthew 18:15-17 and 5:23,24 Counsel of “Jesus Himself.”
Pete, rather than just gving the reference it is a good idea to include the actual quote so readers can see what you mean:
Thank you, Maurice Ashton. But, I figured that people can just click at the reference and “The Scripture Quote will (Pop Out) for them to read it. Anyway, Matthew 18:15-17 is “For the offended,” Church Member. And Matthew 5:23,24 Is “For the offending Church member.” The offended Church member has up to “Three Steps” to follow, and the first “Two Steps,” is without Church Committees or even Pastors to get involved unless it is “The Pastor himself who is the offended party.” The last step here, while it does require a “Church Committee,” it should be “A church business meeting.” The Matthew 5:23,24 for the “Offending Church member,” it only has “One Step,” that of he or she to go the the “Offended Church member,” one on one and “Reconcile” with him or her.
Triune God at works to mend the broken relationship in the Creation. 2Cor 13:14 ¹The Grace of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. ²The Love of GOD. ³The Communion (Fellowship) of the HOLY GHOST.
I have tasted His love for me lately, perhaps more than ever. Because grace, love and fellowship has accompanied me! Thank God for it! He is the best!