Why Were you Circumcised?
"And Hamar and Shechem his son came to the gate of their city, and spoke
to the men of their city, saying, These men are peaceable with us; therefore let
them dwell in the land, and trade in it. And the land-behold, it is of wide
extent before them. We will take their daughters as wives, and give them our
daughters. But only in this will the men consent to us to dwell with us,
to be one people-if every male among us be circumcised, just as they are
circumcised. Their cattle, and their possessions, and every beast of theirs,
shall they not be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will dwell with
us." (Gen. 34:20-23 Darby)
In the Old Testament, circumcision showed that the person belonged to God.
Shechem, who was a Hivite who was not to have anything to do with an Israelite,
had raped Dinah, Jacob's daughter. He and his father were told that if they
would be circumcised everything would be OK. They realized that if they went
along with it they would not only have their women but all of the riches of the
Israelites.
There are a lot of people that act the same as Hamar and Shechem. Are you one of
these? Do you go to church for the social aspect? Do you just go to see who is
there and to be seen? How many times do we see political candidates going to
church just around election time just to be seen? Some people, like Shechem, go
to church just to meet a mate.
Are you going to church just for fire insurance, thinking that going to church
and living a good life get you into heaven? That does not do it, only
surrendering to Jesus Christ gets you into heaven.
When you pray, do you just recite a wish list to God? With a lot of the
preachers talking about having everything you want given to you by naming it and
claiming it do you start believing in God just to get wealthy without doing
anything yourself?
In other words, are you acting like a Christian for some reason besides the one
that counts? Acting religious is like being circumcised physically without being
circumcised of the heart as Paul would say. It is true Jesus Christ can and will
meet your needs but He is not someone who is going to fill your every whim.
When we have truly given ourselves to Jesus Christ and are circumcised of the
heart then there is one thing we are to look for...
"... 10 to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of
his sufferings, being conformed to his death ..." (Php 3:10 DARBY)
Dean W. Masters
homefurn@preferred.com
Unedited redistribution approved
Darby, J. N., 1890 Darby Bible, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.)
1995.