…with what measure ye mete [use, give], it shall be measured to you again.
Matthew 7:2 (KJV)
This could apply to several things, but what I immediately thought of was grace.
God extends grace to us by the shovelfuls, bucketfuls, dump-truck-loads! He just lavishes it on us, almost smothers us with grace! And we are so thankful and want to share with others what God has done.
So we decide to extend grace to someone else. We take a teaspoon and dip it into our reservoir of grace. “Ope, shake a little off, can’t give too much; don’t want to run out, you know.” We extend a measly teaspoon of grace to the person and make sure they know “God has blessed me SO much and has been SO gracious, and I want to be like Him, so here’s this grace.”
And that’s not all. No, when we fail/mess up, we want–maybe even expect–others to just slather the grace on like God does. If they don’t, “well, they must not be a true Christian; they’re not being like Jesus.”
WHAT?! You receive a dump-truck full of grace from God, give a scant teaspoon of that to another person, and expect them to give a shovelful back?! (Of course, they shouldn’t let your actions determine what they do and everything, but we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about you and me.)
Jesus said, “You’ve received freely; now give freely.” (Matthew 10:8, my words) If God gives you a dump-truck-load of grace, give several shovelfuls to someone else (because we really can’t extend as much grace as God does). And if someone only gives you a little bit of grace, don’t get upset–just receive it freely and give more back.
