2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
These people would have rather stayed in bondage than to be free just because they were hungry. That is crazy! But God responds in kindness:
“I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
All God asked was that the Israelites be obedient to His instructions - to take only what they would need for that day. But, no. They tried to hoard the food and store it up for the next morning. The result was an infestation of maggots. Imagine...God had supplied their needs, but they did not trust Him to do it again. Moses was sure to tell them that their complaints were not against him and Aaron, but against God himself. But God showed them favor...despite the grumbling. The Word of God states:
35 The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.
The reason why most of us walk around thinking God is not blessing us is for three reasons:
1. All we do is grumble and complain...even when things are just fine.
2. We do not follow God's instructions for our lives...even when He is often very specific.
3. We have not learned to say, "Lord, any way you bless me, I will be satisfied!" Instead, we just want what we want and more of it.
Refuse to be like the Israelites: complaining spirits, quarrelsome, distrustful, disobedient, greedy and ungrateful. God did eventually get tired of their grumbling and complaining and their rejection and struck them with a plague (See Numbers 11).
I do not know about you, but I would never want God's anger to burn so greatly against me that I jeopardize my own blessings or my life. Thank God for Jesus, who was "filled with wisdom, and the grace of God" - the one who stood in the gap for our grumbling, our hatefulness, our greediness, our rejections, our disobedience and all of our sins. Strive to be more like Jesus and less like an Israelite.
Exodus 16
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2016
Numbers 11
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers+11&version=NIV
No comments:
Post a Comment