Voluntary Heart Surgery

 

Voluntary Heart Surgery

Romans 2: ²⁵ If you obey the Law, your circumcision is of value; but if you disobey the Law, you might as well never have been circumcised. ²⁶ If the Gentile, who is not circumcised, obeys the commands of the Law, will not God regard him as though he were circumcised? ²⁷ And so you Jews will be condemned by the Gentiles because you break the Law, even though you have it written down and are circumcised; but they obey the Law, even though they are not physically circumcised. ²⁸ After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing. ²⁹ Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God's Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.

 

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 “Say you are sorry” were words that did not resonate with me. I mean, I would say the words, but I was not sorry for putting the brat in the box and sitting on the lid. He was my age but acting like he never had seen punishment of any kind.

 

Later in life, I noticed all kinds of brats in school and then in the workplace. I wish I could put “that” person in a box and sit on the lid, I would think to myself.

 

• There have been many people I did not like.
• There have been many people I wanted to show “my” justice to.
• There have been many people I desired to see their demise, because that was in my heart.

 

Paul speaks about something complicated. The Laws of Moses required circumcision. When the church leaders did this, it felt like more of a rite of passage than obedience. They figured out loopholes in the Law rather than following it with their hearts. Paul tries to convince those who have gone through the trouble of following the Law, to pay attention to the “heart” of the Law. This required “surrender.”

 

• GOD wants me to surrender my hatred for people to HIM.
• GOD wants me to well pray for my enemies.
• GOD wants me to love those who hate me.

 

Since the heart is extremely wicked, there is only one surgeon who can fix it, namely JESUS. HE sends in a specialist who can get into the darkest corners of my heart and eradicate any cancerous hatred that resides.

 

GOD promised that if I confess my sins to HIM, HE would be faithful and just to forgive me of my sins and cleanse me of all unrighteousness. JESUS places the HOLY SPIRIT inside me to change my heart. It is up to me to accept HIS SPIRIT when HE knocks on my heart. I accept.

 

• Is your heart full of hatred masked in the communication of the “news?”
• Do you feel better when you see someone get what is coming to them?
• Will you allow GOD to change your heart before you carry hatred, you don’t know you are carrying, into other aspects of your life today?