Abraham and the Flint

I opened my message bible again today for the first time in a week... Don't get me wrong, I have been reading my bible, but have read it through different translations on biblegateway... Anyways, I opened it up to where i had left off and it was the story of Abraham entering into the covenant. God told Abraham all the cool promises and then asked him to chop off his foreskin (circumcision). It reminds me that often we look at all the promises and forget that there is some pain involved.

Selah...

God wants us to be in relationship to Him. He wants us to get a hold of the promises. He wants us to enjoy life (John 10:10b) "in all its fulness." But what He doesn't do is promise that there won't be any pain or sacrifice along the way.

In fact, every one of us must make a similar sacrifice in our lives if we are to be adopted into the covenant. The sacrifice of Lordship of our lives... We MUST give up our will, our ideas, our thoughts, and even our physical lives, if necessary, to what God has in store for us. It's not a trade off, God didn't tell Abraham "Here you can have all these promises, but only chop off half your foreskin..." or "Instead of doing yourself in like that, why don't you just get a tattoo." No God said make it hurt so that you will ALWAYS REMEMBER. Selah

In some ways, I think that we do a disservice to God because we have made it a normal process of birth. "Oh its a boy, let's circumcise him." So many do this without ever stopping to think the significance of it.

Now I am not so far out there as to think that we MUST do it in order to be saved... Quite the opposite, this is what PAUL fought against for so long. But I do think we need to remember that every part of us was bought with a price by the precious blood of Jesus. You'll notice that Abraham didn't start receiving the promises until AFTER circumcision. Which suggests: When we sacrifice, THAT'S when we see God's promises come to pass.

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