It only took about a month.
They appreciated their freedom in Exodus 15. But by Exodus 16, despite being liberated from their bondage in Egypt, the Israelites wanted to go back.
A similar thing happened to the early believers in Jerusalem. They, too, had been delivered from slavery and were now free in Christ Jesus.
But some were too secure with their chains to completely drop them (see Acts 15).
In Grace, Max Lucado explains it this way:
It wasn’t that the people didn’t believe in grace at all. They did. They believed in grace a lot.
They just didn’t believe in grace alone. They wanted to add to the work of Christ.
Grace-a-lots believe in grace, a lot. Jesus almost finished the work of salvation, they argue. In the rowboat named Heaven Bound, Jesus paddles most of the time.
But every so often he needs our help. So we give it. We accumulate good works the way Boy Scouts accumulate merit badges on a sash.
Or so we think.
I don’t want to be a grace-a-lot.
I want to be a grace-in-full.
And from his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.
John 1:16
* * *
Day 14 of . . .
