Jeremiah 4:4 O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the Lord,[a]or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins. (NLT)
[a]Hebrew: Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart.
This rite was established by God to be a special badge of His chosen people, the sign of their consecration and covenantal relationship with Him. It was superceded by the new convenant established under Christ, but is still practiced by most cultures today. But it also had further meaning....
It was a sign of purity. In Isaiah 52:1, we read "Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you."
As we seek to purify our hearts and clothe ourselves in the armor of the Lord in preparation of the battles we fight on behalf of the King, we need to remember to circumcise our hearts to God, making ourselves marked as Kingdom warriors.
As the saying goes in the world today, Christianity is the only army to eat its own wounded.
As we fight the battles for the Kingdom, let us keep an eye out for our struggling brothers and sisters who fight in the darken landscape of the world. Rather than overwhelm our brethren with accussations and ill thought, let us stop alongside them and give them strength. With God given guidance and Holy Spirit blessed words, we can renew our struggling warriors and strengthen the line.
If your heart is circumcised to the Lord, then you will not strike your brethren on the battlefield by mistake. Let the Lord guide you in the accountability and recovery of those God calls His own.
In Christ,
Jim
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