THE ABRAHAMIC LIFESTYLE 6

THE NATURE OF MAN 

And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people, he hath broken my covenant – Gen 17:14

God made a covenant with Abraham concerning the future of his seed. The sign of this covenant was circumcision. Every male seed who wants to partake of the covenant must be circumcised. Failure to do it means such a person would be cut off from God’s people.

Circumcision is the putting off of the body of flesh (Col 2:11). It is necessary for every person who wants to be a partaker of the Abrahamic covenant to be circumcised. We are not by any means talking of physical circumcision. It is our hearts that need to be circumcised.

 The nature we inherited from Adam after his fall (simply called the flesh) is sinful and opposes everything that is God’s. It is proud, arrogant and boastful. Just as an archer with a defective eyesight will always end up with incorrect shots, all our (sinful) incorrect actions are as a result of this defective sinful nature. It is the reason why we rely so much on our strength, eloquence, intelligence, beauty, etc. It is the reason why we find it difficult to please God (Rom 8:8)

A God’s chosen people, we are to be people with no confidence in the flesh. Apostle Paul enjoins us not to have any confidence in flesh (Phil 3:3) because without God, we can do nothing (Jn 15:5). We need God to deal with this nature of flesh in us. It does not need to be repaired because it is too corrupted. In similitude to Abraham’s obedience, we too must cut off the body of flesh. This is not something we can achieve on our own. We need the Lord’s help and only He can make it happen, if His covenant must be established in our lives.

This is high time we conducted an examination of ourselves. We need to identify those things that are still opposing God in us. We need to identify those things that are still making total obedience to the Lord a difficulty. They must be nailed to the cross and we must ask the Lord to help perfect every imperfection in our lives.

When we sincerely pray this prayer every time we feel the flesh is about to come alive in us, the Merciful Lord will hear those prayers and bestow upon us the grace we need to overcome.

THE ABRAHAMIC LIFESTYLE 5

Standing in the Gap

And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also

destroy the righteous with the wicked? – Gen 18:23

Abraham was resting by his tent door in the heat of the day when he saw three men standing before him. Quickly he rushed out to meet them and then invited them to dine with him. As the men rose up after eating, the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” (Gen 18:17). This was how it was revealed to Abraham that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were booked for destruction.

Ordinarily, we would have expected him to rejoice on hearing this. He had every reason to be happy because God was about to deal with his enemies and that meant more land for him to acquire. Rather we saw him interceding for those people. He pleaded for them to be spared from the impending judgment.

Like Abraham, we need to cultivate the habit of interceding for people. Hear this shocking truth: God looked round and saw there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor…. (Is 59:16). God expects you and I to become intercessors and we must not fail Him in this responsibility.

The Enemy does not want us to pray. He is working round the clock to hinder us from praying for God’s intervention in our national and international affairs. Our generation is that which requires extraordinary praying. We may ask why. The reason is because the enemy knows his time is short and the powers of darkness are greater today than before.

Brethren, we need to rise up to the task at hand. The souls of men must be freed from the Enemy’s grip and the powers of darkness must be utterly shattered. John Knox cried “Give me Scotland or I die”. Somebody later recorded that the whole nation of Scotland was converted by a lump. John got the answer to his prayers and we also can when we pray for our nation.

May the Lord use us mightily as vessels that will rescue the souls of men from the road to hell as we continually stand in the gap for our people.