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.