When you were saved, you were circumcised in your heart. Your life with respect to the flesh must change and align with the Spirit.
“In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.”
Colossians 2:11 (NKJV)
Welcome to Day 29 of the 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting and Day 1 of 5 Days of Help.
If we were to sum up everything this season is doing and is supposed to do for us, it can be summarized as the "circumcision" of the heart.
Circumcision is the surgical cutting away of the foreskin of the male reproductive organ. Circumcision played four roles in the Old Testament:
- Identification
- Promise
- Protection
- Shadow
Genesis 17:9-14
New King James Version
9 And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
10 This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;
11 and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.
12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant.
13 He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
God has a covenant with Abraham, that in him and through him, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Interestingly, modern medicine has actually confirmed something remarkable: a newborn's blood-clotting ability is fully developed after a few days of life, with the high point of that development at the end of the first week.
God's eighth-day rule was not random, but actually in line with what is medically practised today. God didn't pick the eighth day arbitrarily; He picked a day that lines up with how He wired our bodies to heal. That's the intentional God we serve.
But what was going on in that story is deeper. God's plan is for the world to be called His people, but since the world is turning its back on Him because of sin, He needs a people to become a pattern for what His plan will look like when the whole world becomes His people.
God made a covenant with Abraham. The sign of that covenant would be circumcision, so any male child in his lineage is circumcised to say, "I belong to Yahweh," because Israel would now be called God's people, and the whole world could later be called God's people too. God blesses men with men.
And the mark was placed on the male not because he was the only one with foreskin, but because the male was meant to cover his family. So if the male was circumcised, his wife and children were covered under that same identity, "we belong to Yahweh." That's where identification starts.
The circumcision also revealed protection. If anyone circumcised belonged to Yahweh, that person had Yahweh's covering. That's why David could say to Goliath, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?"
There's a huge difference between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, because belonging to God means God is dedicated to your life. Anyone who came against a circumcised person in those days came against God.
The circumcision revealed promise. The promise being that they will be God’s people, and He will be their God, as long as they are committed and are not in sin, and that through Abraham's obedience would come the line of the Christ.
And finally, circumcision revealed shadow because Israel was not the ultimate end. Israel was the prototype, the example relationship. God wants that same relationship with the whole world.
The plan is that all nations will be blessed and become God's people. The mark of circumcision was only a prototype of the real mark that shows you belong to God.
But circumcision also had a limitation, a limit to what the physical act could accomplish.
Romans 2:25-27
New Living Translation
25 The Jewish ceremony of circumcision has value only if you obey God’s law. But if you don’t obey God’s law, you are no better off than an uncircumcised Gentile.
26 And if the Gentiles obey God’s law, won’t God declare them to be his own people?
27 In fact, uncircumcised Gentiles who keep God’s law will condemn you Jews who are circumcised and possess God’s law but don’t obey it.
What's the value of circumcision if the circumcised person disobeys God's law?
You can claim to be God's people because you're circumcised, but not act like it. In the same way, you can call yourself a believer and not live like one. Your daily life, your devotion, your commitment to ministry — none of it proves you're saved.
Paul's argument is this: if Gentiles are more committed and obedient to God's law than the Jews who carry the mark of circumcision, doesn't it look like the Gentiles are the ones who should be considered circumcised, and the circumcised Jews should be considered outside the covenant?
Romans 2:28-29
New King James Version
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
Your commitment and devotion to God is a heart matter, not a matter of merely obeying rules. If God marks you as His own, your character and the way you live must reflect that you belong to Him.
If those who are uncircumcised follow the will of God and do good, don't they prove they fear God more than those who are circumcised but disobedient, and that they are, in effect, more "circumcised" than you?
Think of it like a wedding ring — a ring is a symbol of covenant. If you wear your ring and cheat, are you still faithfully married? No, you've broken the vow, even while wearing the symbol.
Meanwhile, someone not wearing a ring but faithful in their commitment is, in that sense, more "married" than you. In the same way, if you dishonour the covenant while carrying its mark, you're worse off than someone who never had the covenant at all. Your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.
Colossians 2:11
New King James Version
11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ
There's a circumcision not made with hands. Remember, circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin. This verse tells us we are circumcised, not physically, but by "putting off the body of sin". The circumcision of the spirit is the surgical removal of the old man; the physical foreskin was symbolically representing that same old nature being cut away.
Colossians 2:12-15
New King James Version
12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
When you were saved, you were circumcised in your heart. Your life with respect to the flesh must change and align with the Spirit. And seasons of fasting help you continue to enforce that circumcision.
Every day, your heart is being circumcised — the Spirit does what physical circumcision did, but better: identification (the mark that you belong to God), promise (that you will be with Christ in the end), protection, and transformation (not just shadow anymore, but the real thing).
When you fast, you give the Spirit room to work. This is an active, ongoing circumcision — cutting away, changing, moving things out. He is changing your priorities, helping you to learn to persevere, to put no confidence in the flesh, but to boast in Christ Jesus.
With Love,
The Catalyst,
Pastor Michael Ipaye.
Prayer
Holy Spirit, help me. Circumcise my heart and change something in me. Change my priorities, my disposition, my heart. Remove the impurities, the wrong priorities, the wrong desires, in the name of Jesus.
