The Covenant of Circumcision

     Today's Love Note is Circumcised Heart:

which is found in Deuteronomy 30:6

The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and all your soul, that you may live. 

Circumcision is painful. The first circumcision noted in the Bible was not done by a doctor or healer but by Abraham. Nor was it done just to babies, but  to grown men. Men who wanted to follow Abraham and Abraham's God. (Genesis 17).

    Then, as now, God calls us first to righteousness, then a name change, then the circumcision. Then, it was a physical circumcision: it was painful and bloody. Now, it is a spiritual circumcision: it is painful and it is bloody. 

    God says, "I choose you. Choose Me in return and I will bless you greatly. If anyone wants to be in My covenant, this circumcision must be done. By choosing not to do this, My covenant will be broken with that one who refuses." 

     The heart that refuses to follow God will remain bloodless: If the blood of Christ has not been applied to the heart, then that heart is uncovenanted: there is no fellowship with God, no joy, no peace.

No promise of God which requires obedience to Him before it can be fulfilled will fall on the disobedient. 

     The pain and bloodiness of a circumcised heart is known by the believer. It is Christ who suffered and died. It is Christ who was made a bloody mess for us. It is in Christ we suffer and die. It is through Christ's atonement on the Cross that our hearts are able to receive the promise of salvation from the hand of God. 

     Before our hearts can be circumcised by The Holy Spirit, we must believe that Jesus Christ Is and that He Is our Redeemer sent from God. Romans 4:10-12 "In what context was it credited? Was it after his circumcision, or before? It was not after, but before. And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised."