The distributed message handling system is created by using session states to represent the plurality of session contexts in the message handling system. The session states are flat representations of the session context which completely describe the session. Utilizing the session states to handle system message requests allows the message handling system to distribute the handling of the message requests to a plurality of state machines. Advantageously, the distributed messaging system allows the message handling system to dynamically allocate message handling resources to application instances based on demand. Such dynamic allocation allows providers to efficiently allocate resources to meet demand while meeting application execution demands.