A Circumcised Heart

In the previous two messages I’ve tried to explain that the covenant that God has made with man is not an outward agreement, or an outward relationship, but rather an inward life. It is a relationship between the soul of man and the life or Seed of God. There was indeed a time when God established an outward agreement, using outward things, outward laws, and ceremonies, and sacrifices. But even then, even during the old covenant, this outward covenant pointed to an inward relationship with an inward life. The outward pictures were never the thing that God was after. This is plainly stated in the Prophets, the Psalms, and also in the New Testament. God never desired the blood of bulls and goats, meal offerings, wave offerings, or outward conformity to rules and rituals. God used these things to point an outward people to an inward life, or an implanted Word. I mean, to a people whose hearts, eyes, understanding, and treasures were found in the outward world, God used outward figures and symbols and ceremonies to turn their hearts to a Word that was near them, in their mouth and in their heart. 

This was shown to Israel even during the time of the old covenant. In Deuteronomy 29:1 we read, “These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.” And in what follows Moses writes, “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” And this commandment, he says, is “not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.” (Deut. 30:11-14)

There were several outward covenants mentioned in the Old Testament, but in the heart and plan of God, there was only ever one relationship, one agreement that God was aiming at, and desiring all men to walk in. And that covenant is a relationship with God in the life of His Son. This is the only real way to unite with God, or to walk with Him. Remember, a covenant is a specific relationship, with a binding agreement. This relationship with God is a way to live with Him in the life of His Son. And the binding agreement is the need to lose the life that cannot unite with God, and learn to live in the life that comes from God. 

In the old covenant, the relationship was a kind of walking with God in a whole lot of pictures and types and shadows of Christ… pictures of righteousness, purity, cleanness, offerings, sacrifices, fragrances, blood, incense, etc. And in order to enter into that covenant, you needed to cut off the foreskin of the flesh. Well, the new covenant is a relationship with God, not in pictures and shadows of Christ, but in the substance, the nature, the life of Christ. And all flesh, the entire nature of flesh, must be circumcised if we are going to learn to walk in the relationship, and keep the covenant.

As I mentioned previously, there are many people who assume they are walking in the new covenant, just because they were born after the old covenant; or because they do not keep outward rudiments and ordinances; or because they have read the Scriptures and believe that Jesus gives life. Well, it is certainly good to believe that Jesus gives life, and that Jesus IS life. All Christians believe that Christ is life, and nearly all would say that they have received life from Christ. But what I want to suggest to you is that a great many of us have never learned what it means to walk in that life, to abide in that life, and in that way to KEEP the covenant. Nor have we learned to cease walking in the life that has no covenant with God. 

Because, again, the new covenant is not an agreement with humans that have correct beliefs. That’s not the relationship. The new covenant is a relationship that man can experience by walking in the LIFE of the Son of God. But if we don’t walk and live and experience the life of the Son of God, if we continue to walk and live and experience the life of the flesh, the life that is contrary to God, then regardless of what we believe, we are not experiencing or keeping the new covenant.

So, for us who talk about the new covenant, and claim to have been given a new covenant, the issue of the greatest importance is not what we have understood with our minds, or read in a books, but whether or not we are living in and by the LIFE that has a covenant with God. Do you understand? It is not whether we understand spiritual mysteries, or have received great revelations. It’s not that we understand that Christ is the fulfillment of Old Testament types and shadows, or that we call ourselves “ministers of the Spirit and not of the letter.” The only question that has any relevance, is whether our hearts, on a day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment basis, are learning to ABIDE and REMAIN in that one life that is in covenant with God, and learning to DIE to the one life that has no covenant with God.

This is the fundamental issue of the new covenant. And I stress this point because I often hear people and ministers these days make the new covenant about something else. People say, “Oh, I used to go to that church over there, but then I realized that they teach “old covenant” things, old laws, rules, and rudiments of an outward christianity. But now I’ve come to the new covenant, and we talk about spiritual things, like the finished work, revelation, the present truth, etc.!” Well, I don’t know what you are hearing or teaching or believing, but I can tell you this: The only way to be a new covenant believer is to walk in the life of the Son of God, and to cease walking in the life that is outside of the covenant. 

Now the life of God comes to man in a way that is very different than how we assume or expect. It does not come to man and instantaneously and automatically take over souls and govern our lives. No. God’s life is very real. It is very much alive, and has great power. But it comes to us, as Jesus taught, as a grain of mustard seed, which is the smallest seed in the garden of our heart. It comes to us as a small pearl of great price, as a little bit of leaven that must fill three loaves of bread, as a talent that must increase, as a seed that is sown into every sort of soil, as a treasure hidden in a field. This is how the life of God, and the reign of God IN the life, begins in man. 

This is often NOT taught in the church today, but it is one of the main principles that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God, or the government of God in man. It is not something that you just say “I got it!” “I prayed a prayer, I felt something in my heart, and now I am good, now I’m safe, now it’s finished.” That is not what Jesus taught. That is not what any of the apostles’ taught. They all taught that the work of God begins in man as something small, and that it must grow. It must grow, and fill, and spread, and increase, until Christ is formed in us. 

But they also taught, in many, many ways, that there is great danger while the life, or while the REIGN of the life, is very small in man. Yes, there is danger of weeds, and thorns, and rocks, and birds getting in the way of its growth, and causing the work of the seed to be stopped and lost. There is danger of receiving a talent, and burying it in the earth, not allowing its increase, and losing it in the end. There is danger of finding the treasure in the field, but not selling everything in order to purchase and possess it. There is danger of seeing light, but wanting to hide from the light because our deeds are evil. There is even danger of saying “Lord Lord”, loving His words, and doing many things in Christ’s name, and yet having Christ tell us in the end, “Depart from Me, I never knew you”. 

Paul tells us there is danger of receiving the grace of God in vain. He says, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” (2 Cor 6:1) He says there is danger of beginning in the Spirit and trying to continue in the flesh. He says there is danger of shipwrecking in our faith, of insulting the Spirit of grace, of falling away, believing in vain, etc. In Revelation, Jesus warns the churches of losing their first love, losing their candlestick, thinking they have all things but being blind, poor, miserable, wretched and naked. 

Yes, there are great dangers after we begin to experience the life of God. I say these things because there is great presumption, and great misunderstanding in many concerning the coming of Christ’s life in man. It does not come to you and instantaneously and automatically make you safe and perfect and new. It comes to you as a living Word, or Light, or Seed, as a measure of Christ’s life and grace and power. The gift is perfect, but the recipient of the gift is far from perfect. The work of Christ outside of you is finished, but the work of Christ inside of you has just begun. And we must learn to receive Him with incredible meekness and humility and nothingness of self. And then we must learn to walk with Him, abide in Him, offer Him good soil, and so experience the increase of His kingdom. 

The life is very real. But it does not begin in you with all of its enemies under its feet. Life comes down from heaven and lands in the soil of your heart. Yes this is true. This is life and this is grace!…but your will is not under its feet. Your desires are not under its feet. Your understanding and intellect is not under its feet. Your passions are not under its feet. Your plans, goals, pursuits, preferences, fears, angers, addictions, your HEART is not under its feet. All of these other things have grown large in you, and they have a life of their own. They run wild in you with the life of self, the nature of self, the will of self. 

You see, it’s not as simple as just saying “I invited Christ into my heart 30 years ago”. Because you invited all of these other things into your heart too, and they are all plants in the garden of your heart, they have voices and movements and wills. They all want attention, they all want to be fed, and followed and pleased, and the natural man has become very used to listening to and obeying the voice of his own desires, his own will, his own mind, his own insecurities, passions, lusts, annoyances, and plans. These are inward things, and we can’t point to them with our finger, or describe them perfectly with words. But we have all heard or felt these things pushing and pulling and motivating us, even AFTER we became Christians. We have felt them grow stronger as we have fed them, perhaps even stronger than we can  control.

But now, there is something else in you. There are two things in you that are entirely different. The one is the nature of fallen flesh, that lives the life of self, and seeks pleasure in unrighteousness, selfishness, pride, lust, and covetousness. The other has a very different nature, and a very different voice. It reproves your pride. It exposes your selfishness to your own view. When you lie or exaggerate, it sometimes makes you feel a sting in your conscience. When you unite your will with an evil thought or desire, it leaves you feeling shameful or dirty. It tells you that there is another way to live, another way to think, another path to choose. 

You have all heard this voice. Perhaps it is not a strong voice in you yet. Perhaps it is more like a “still, small, voice” in the center of your heart, easy to overlook, easy to ignore. But you have heard it. You have felt how it can sting you. You have felt its convictions. And you have perhaps felt that it gives you a measure of peace and joy when you listen and obey. You have heard it saying “Turn at My rebuke, and I will pour out My Spirit upon you.” (Prov. 1:23). You have heard it warning you not to continue living, thinking, acting, the way that you do. 

THIS, my friends, is the voice of the LIFE of God. This is your Messiah, crying out in the streets of your heart. He is saying “Come, follow me!” And perhaps you are ready with this response, “But I am already a Christian! I already believe in Jesus! I already read the Bible and go to church!” Yes, but I am not asking what religion you believe, but what voice are you following. WHAT LIFE ARE YOU LIVING??

If you are going to be a new covenant Christian, you must learn to listen to, follow, and experience the voice of the life of God that has been sown into your heart like a little Seed. The covenant is in that Seed, and you cannot walk in the covenant unless you turn to, submit to, follow, and experience the growth of that Seed. Everything depends upon your familiarity with that Seed, with that measure of life, light, grace that God has sown in your heart. Is that growing in you, and you growing up in it? Are you letting it put all of its enemies in you under its feet?

My friends THIS is what Christ does in the heart by His new covenant. He writes His spiritual law on the tablet of the human heart by His own finger. What are you letting Him write in your heart? Somebody objects to me and says, “I already have the entire New Testament written in a book!” I repeat, the New Testament isn’t the new covenant, and these are written in different places. The New Testament is a book, given by the Spirit, that describes the new covenant. The new covenant is a relationship between your soul and the life of God, and it is written on your heart. It is written inwardly and read inwardly. And you walk in that covenant as you learn that life, and feel that life, and experience its growth, bow to its sword and allow its increase. 

I want to be very clear in what I am saying to you. I’m using a lot of Scriptures and analogies to describe this, but I want to make sure that you understand exactly what I’m saying. I’m telling you that we MUST become more and more familiar with the life of God that is in our soul. We must learn to turn to it, to feel it, to love it, to obey it. It is not sufficient to just believe that it is there, somewhere buried under all of your thoughts and plans and opinions and desires. No, if you are going to walk in the covenant, you must learn the life, find the life, feel the life, and live in the life that has been given to you by God. Because the covenant is in the life.

And how do you do this? You turn to its light, and pay attention to its voice. Not just at the beginning, when you say the sinner’s prayer. You must turn to it now, today, tomorrow, every day, every hour. You must learn to look for Him always, reach for Him, seek Him, hear Him, and let Him put everything in you under His feet. He will teach you. He will show you exactly where your will departs from His life. He will show you when your words or actions grieve His Spirit. He will teach you the boundaries of His life, and where your own life in the flesh must be denied. He will show you when you are feeding a nature that He is trying to crucify. Or when you are crucifying the life that He is trying to form in you. He will “bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts.” And the more you submit to that light, the more room there will be in your heart for the life. That is how it grows. That is how you learn it. 

The light of God shines in order to bring us into the life of God. In John chapter 1, we read “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The life of the Word is the light of men. Take a minute to think about that. The life of the Word that was with God, and WAS God, in the beginning, is the light of men. That light shines in the darkness. But why does the light shine in the darkness? It shines in the darkness to bring us back into the life from which it came.

Remember we read Isaiah 42:6 in a previous session. God says to His Son, “I will give You as a covenant to the people, and as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes.” The light shines from the life, in order to make room for the life. And if we love the light, the life will grow. If we bring our deeds to the light, and walk in the light, then life finds good soil in us, and will grow by its own power, and according to its own will.

I assume that everyone in this room has experienced something of Christ, and that is why you decided to be a Christian. I mean, I assume that you were not convinced with arguments, or pressured by your parents, but that at some moment in your life, in a moment of softness, or brokenness, or humility, or hopelessness, you felt something, SOMEONE, in your heart showing you a different life than the one you were living in the flesh. You felt something real. Something moved in your heart, and you said, “That is true! That is life! And you gave up yourself to follow it.

And now I’m here to ask you, is your heart STILL in the same place? Because that is where the covenant is. I mean, are you still soft, broken, and humble. Are you still turned towards Him, and turned away from yourself? Do you still feel that life, and are you still, every day, every moment, giving up your will, to follow it, to walk with it and in it. My friends, you began experiencing the new covenant by FEELING something real from God, and then giving up yourself to follow it. This is the only way to begin. And this is the only way to go on. 

But if you draw back from Him to walk in your own will, to live your own life, to follow your own desires of the flesh and desires of your eyes, then you are breaking your first agreement, leaving your first love. You are breaking the covenant. The covenant isn’t with your flesh-life. The covenant is with the life of the Seed, the life of the Son of God, and with you IN the Seed. You are “accepted IN the beloved.” And if your heart comes out from that place where you are soft, and turned, and tender, working out your salvation with fear and trembling, then you are coming out from the place where you can feel the covenant, and walk in the covenant with your God. 

The heart of man cannot continue to walk in the new covenant without a total surrender of the life of the flesh. That’s the agreement, remember? The only way to be a new covenant believer is to walk in the life of the Son of God, and to cease walking in the life that is outside of the covenant. The life of flesh has no place in the covenant. Circumcision is the way in. And you must maintain a circumcised heart to keep the covenant. Nobody can stand in this covenant, or walk in this covenant, without submitting to be upheld, and led, and cleansed and changed by the life of the Son of God. 

But the good news is that the Teacher of the covenant, the one who writes it on the heart, is within you and I. This is the great promise that was spoken to Jeremiah about the covenant. 

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD.”  (Jer. 31:31-34)