Ephesians 4:7 - An overflowing heaping helping of undeserved divine favor

"But to each one of us was given the grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ."

-So for all who truly trust in Christ, we were all called into one body, one Spirit - all the oneness Paul has just described and which we are to guard vigilantly with all humilty and forebearance, etc.  But no homogeneous cookie-cutter outfit, this.  We are not talking about a mass of monkey-see monkey-do sycophants who are supposed to all look and talk and live and be indistinguishably identical.  No, there is dazzling beauty and creativity and individuality to be expressed in and through our oneness.  

-On each one of us individually God has lavished grace, freely gifted, copious amounts of it, an overflowing heaping helping of undeserved divine favor.  And to be sure, part of the grace we have each received is what covers our enormous individual need for forgiveness.  Total indebtedness, in fact - "for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all" (James 2.10).  United we are in the fact of our sinfulness and separation from the God Who made us, but the road back, that road less travelled, the journey on which we each embark towards heaven via Calvary is one-of-a-kind.  We each bring a different set of baggage, warts, and missteps to the table.  Every one of those who have come to Christ has a wonderfully different story to tell about how God reached down and stepped in to meet our deepest need and rescue us from ourselves.  But wait - there’s more!  As we will find, equally as individually, God has gifted each and every believer with a grace-gift, a charisma if you will (the Greek word for grace - which Paul uses here - is charis).

-Yes, we were called, and grace was given.  God did it, to be sure.  And specifically here Paul calls it the gift of Christ.  It could be that Christ IS the gift, which of course He is (cf John 3.16), but as we will see, in this case it is God the Son Who is actually giving gifts to God’s people, and that in different measure, in differing amounts (Romans 12.6).  Yes, in one respect some of these gifts will prove to be more fruitful than others (Matthew 13.23), and yet in all things we will one day see that in and through it all the Spirit of Christ was energizing each gift and bringing the increase in whatever way He so desired (1Corinthians 12.11), all to show off and increase the celebration of how breathtakingly good God really is.