“And Hamar and Shechem his son came to the gate of their city, and spoke to the men of their city, saying, These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade in it. And the land-behold, it is of wide extent before them. We will take their daughters as wives, and give them our daughters. But only in this will the men consent to us to dwell with us, to be one people-if every male among us be circumcised, just as they are circumcised. Their cattle, and their possessions, and every beast of theirs, shall they not be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will dwell with us.” (Gen. 34:20-23 Darby)
In the Old Testament, circumcision showed that the person belonged to God. Shechem, who was a Hivite who was not to have anything to do with an Israelite, had raped Dinah, Jacob’s daughter. He and his father were told that if they would be circumcised everything would be OK. They realized that if they went along with it they would not only have their women but all of the riches of the Israelites.
There are a lot of people that act the same as Hamar and Shechem. Are you one of these? Do you go to church for the social aspect? Do you just go to see who is there and to be seen? How many times do we see political candidates going to church just around election time just to be seen? Some people, like Shechem, go to church just to meet a mate.
Are you going to church just for fire insurance, thinking that going to church and living a good life get you into heaven? That does not do it, only surrendering to Jesus Christ gets you into heaven.
When you pray, do you just recite a wish list to God? With a lot of the preachers talking about having everything you want given to you by naming it and claiming it do you start believing in God just to get wealthy without doing anything yourself?
In other words, are you acting like a Christian for some reason besides the one that counts? Acting religious is like being circumcised physically without being circumcised of the heart as Paul would say. It is true Jesus Christ can and will meet your needs but He is not someone who is going to fill your every whim.
When we have truly given ourselves to Jesus Christ and are circumcised of the heart then there is one thing we are to look for…
“… 10 to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death …” (Php 3:10 DARBY)
Dean W. Masters
homefurn@preferred.com
Unedited redistribution approved
Darby, J. N., 1890 Darby Bible, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1995.