Don’t Credit The Cow

The Israelites were subjected to harsh conditions as slaves in Egypt.

God heard their prayers, their cries for help.

God raised up Moses to lead them out of Egypt.

God sent plagues to Egypt in order to frustrate Pharaoh, Egypt’s leader.

God opened up the Red Sea so the people could cross over on dry ground.

God provided bread from heaven and plenty of quail for the people to eat in the desert.

God provided water for them to drink from a rock.

Moses went up a mountain to meet with God for several days.

A few days later, the people forget about God and decide to make their own god…

Aaron (Moses’ brother) leads the way, collects gold, and makes a golden calf for them to worship.

“The people responded with enthusiasm: ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from Egypt!’” (Exodus 32.4 MSG)

They gave credit to the cow for all that God had done.

It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?

I want to call them a bunch of idiots…

And then I realize, we do the same thing.

We credit the cow—we praise our efforts as if that’s why we’ve come this far.

Our rule keeping, morality, accomplishments and achievements are just hand-crafted golden cows.

Paul reminded the Ephesian church of this truth:

“Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role, If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. (Ephesians 2.8-10 MSG)

Here’s another way to say it:

Don’t credit yourself—don’t credit the cow. Give God all the credit.