The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
Well what in world does this mean? A literal circumcision was an external sign that you agreed to be in a covenant type relationship with God. Yet, if the history of Israel teaches us anything, it's that this one time external action did not help one to live up to that covenant. I liken it to a virtual signature, or a letter intent if you will. As we all know, there is often a huge disconnect between intent, and what actually happens in any agreement; even when we enter it with sincerity.
This is where the heart comes in. As we have mentioned in past posts, the heart is our spiritual center Biblically speaking. Everything we do, weather it is good, bad, or indifferent is a reflection upon where our heart is at. So if we have a hard time living up to our side of the covenant, and live a holy life, it's a sign of a heart problem. So when God says he aims to circumcise our heart, it means he wants to transform our heart so that we can love him better via holiness. We will not be able to live a truly righteous life without a "circumcised" heart.
If our heart is God's focus, then it needs to be ours as well. Otherwise, we are just addressing the symptom, and not the illness. Which can be sort of like painting over rust. It looks great for awhile, but it always bleeds through in time. Just as it does when we focus only on behavior and ignore the root cause, which is the heart.
I dare say that is just what many of us are doing, focusing on the surface, keeping us perpetually immature in the spirit. So we keep having to address the same issues repeatedly, just as the ancient Hebrews did.
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. -Luke 6:45
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