4-16-23 Willisburg Bulletin
Dispenser of God’s Grace
A lot of times when you hear dispensation, you think of time, but in Ephesians 3:2 it actually means the action of distributing or supplying something. Have you ever thought about what that means?
If you think about a dispenser, you know it has to be emptied to be filled up. You have to empty yourself of pity, exaltation, reliance, etc. In Ephesians 4:31 we are told to put away all bitterness, envy, malice, wrath, and evil. These attributes are humankind’s gut reaction most of the time. But when it’s emptied it has to be filled back up with something to be able to distribute anything. So, we have to be emptied of self, to be filled with God! We have to deny ourselves just as Jesus said in Luke 9:23 to put on Christ as Paul said in Galatians 2:20.
What you put in the dispenser is what will come put. If you put in water, is fruit punch going to come out of the spout? Of course not. Therefore, what you put in your heart is what will proceed out of the mouth as Matthew 15:18 insinuates. So, what is it that we must be filled with and how are we filled? Well, God’s grace has been abundantly dumped into our jar. So much, that it is consistently OVERFLOWING! Ephesians 4:7 says, “but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Christ’s gift was His sacrifice on the cross to pardon MY sin, not even His. He bore the cross for me and there’s no way we will ever be able to repay Him, which explains the filling up of our jar of an immeasurable amount of grace. It will always be so full, it leaks out of the spout; we don’t ever have to worry about our jar being empty. Ephesians 4:32 tells us to be filled with kindness and forgiveness, so just as God has dispensed grace to us, so we must do unto others. The amount we are bestowed we can’t even measure, so we are told to share that same grace to others in the same measure; therefore, limitlessly imparting grace. We are always being filled, which means we must always be dispensing.
God’s Grace is a Gift
A gift isn’t really a gift until it has a recipient. But, who is that? Who can receive this gift? Anyone can be a “fellow heir” (Ephesians 3:6) if you partake in the promise through the gospel, which is to obey through baptism. Through His power of overcoming physical death on the cross, we can receive the same grace and power if we will to obey. So take time to read Ephesians 3:14-21 as Paul explains how God’s grace is truly a gift.