Remember when you were a kid and you discovered you could drag you feet along the carpet and shock someone with a spark of electricity? I do. In fact, it was my favorite thing to do in the school library. I would get a really good charge happening and then walk up to an unexpected person from behind and touch their ear. Sometimes the spark was so big that I only got within a few inches and “Pow”, the spark would fly. The victim I did the prank to would scream so loudly they would get in trouble with the librarian which made the prank so much better. ( this was my BC days – before Christ)
The reason for “confessing” to my young devious ways was to talk further about my last posting on “Stewarding Grace”. The apostle Paul talked about how he was given certain gifts from God to build the church up with, and he was also given understanding about how others are given “Gifts of Grace” to make the church healthy and strong as well, like he was.
Ephesians 3:2 (NASB)If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you;
Now in Ephesians 4 he continues the idea of “God’s Empowering”, namely, grace, and reveals a continued idea of our ability to both benefit personally from recovering grace or withhold grace from others.
Ephesians 4:7 (NASB)But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Like the static electricity, we all have been given a certain amount of grace to build others up with. Some of us use that grace a lot and others just walk around carrying that grace, never extending it for others benefits.
Ephesians 4:11-12 (NASB)And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
God’s grace was never meant to be bottled up and contained, but released to equip. The more we give it away the more we are filled.
Questions:
1) If God forgave you because of what Christ gave you are you in turn giving away that grace?
2) If grace, Christ “Empowering Presence”, will never run out if we use it, why would we not desire to be generous like God and not hoard it?
May the Holy Spirit fill us completely so that the living water of the Holy Spirit flows from us to a lost and a dying world.
Pastor Dale
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