#DailyDevotion Only Those Hearts Which Jesus Circumcises Are The Lord’s People
October 28th
Read Deut 30:1–20
Deu 30:4-6 If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. (5) And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. (6) And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. (15) “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. (16) If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
The Word, the Law and commandments, the precepts and rules are impossible for natural man to keep. Therefore, the Lord lets them know that at some point in time the Israelites are going to experience the blessings and the curses. The blessings they will experience as their faith in the Lord and they do what he commands. The curses will follow when they cease to trust the Lord and go their own way.
But the Lord makes a promise here. When they are driven to foreign lands, and they will be driven to foreign lands, He will gather them back. More than that, He will circumcise their hearts and their offspring’s hearts so that they will love the Lord their God and do all that He wills. The Lord tells them these commandments He’s given them are not too hard. He placed them in their mouths and in their hearts. Therefore they can do what He asks of them. But that only works as long as they are faithful. We know that they were not.
Obedience to the will of God is a matter of the heart. It is one of faith and not works. For without faith it is impossible to please God and everything apart from faith is sin. God does not look at the outward work but at our hearts. Paul reminds us, Rom 2:28-29 “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. (29) But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” It is our hearts that must be circumcised and that the Lord does when He baptizes us.
In baptism, the Lord gives us a new heart and a new mind. He gives us the Holy Spirit and while our sinful flesh may continue to sin, the new man created in Christ Jesus loves the law of God, sees it as holy and good and desires to keep it. Indeed, the new man in Christ obeys God’s law from the heart, spontaneously without thinking about it. This is born out in faith. With faith the Lord gives in His Son Jesus Christ we trust in Him and love our neighbor. In this faith He showers His blessings upon His Israel, the Church of which you were made a part when you were baptized.
Lord God, heavenly Father, continually circumcise our hearts that we may love you with our whole heart, mind, strength and will and live in obedience to your will by loving our neighbor who is made in your image and likeness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.