In Exodus, God set his people free from Egyptian captivity and then provided food for them on their journey toward his promised land. The food was a daily supply of bread-like nutrition called manna, and it appeared each new morning. God told his people to gather enough to last for one day, and then tomorrow they could gather enough fresh manna again. Being fearful and untrusting people like most of us, some of the Israelites sought to gather more than one day's need. After all, "what if God doesn't hold up on his promise and give us manna again tomorrow?" To this, the Bible says essentially that "manna doesn't keep." Those who sought to store it found that it spoiled and had maggots. Gross. Yesterday's manna wont do and tomorrow's manna isn't here yet.
Grace is like that. Grace is a daily thing with God. See, through the cross God has set us free by his forgiveness. On the new journey of life with God, he offers us grace for our sin so that we might keep living as free people. Kind of like manna for Israel. Grace is his daily supply of what we need to live in his freedom and with joy; with a clean conscience from the past and without fear of what will happen if we sin in the future. But many of us have a hard time trusting grace. What if God doesn't give us grace for sin in the future? When will he just say, "enough grace for you already - do you know how much grace I keep pouring out for you? No more." We can get fearful about this so we try to "store up grace" in case we need it in the future should God decide to no longer provide it. Or sometimes we reach for yesterday's grace when we felt it in a special way. Like manna, yesterday's grace doesn't keep however. Is that bad news? It'd only be bad news if there wasn't a fresh supply of grace every day. Sometimes we keep trying to retrieve yesterday's grace because while God has given us forgiveness, we're still living in the regret of our yesterday, not believing that his grace was sufficient for it.
Will you trust God for today's grace? It's likely that to do this you will also have to grow to trust him for tomorrow's promised grace. Otherwise you will you try to "store up grace" the way some Israelites tried to store manna; and grace like manna, doesn't keep. God made it this way, so our relationship with him would never get stale, so we'd keep coming to him daily, living with him in his fresh supply of today's grace.
