Your best attempts to prove you belong to God are futile.
If those who don’t belong obeyed God’s laws (and no one can be that obedient) they would belong more than those who say they belong to God and try prove it by their efforts.
Here is what Paul says about it:
“Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.” (Romans 2 v 25-29)
There is nothing you can do to cause you to be saved, not one thing, it is total grace. Not one performance, not one sin-free day, not one commandment or act of purity or sacrificial giving, nothing. Get rid of the whole notion.
Circumcision is so important to the Jew. In fact it is the rite of passage. It is easy to imagine Jewish teachers imposing this requirement on new followers of Jesus.
Baptism is not the outward sign of belonging to God nor is the Lord’s Supper or witnessing or church attendance etc. These are never enough. There is always more things that are needed. Don’t be friends with Pharisees because you will lose the one thing that is of all importance, grace.
Moses called for people to circumcise their hearts. Jeremiah called for people to circumcise their hearts before the Lord and Paul agrees that circumcision is one done by the Spirit.
I have found the cut of my heart continually happen throughout my life and so have you. Sometimes the pain of circumstances are used to make the cut and sometimes it is the pain of conviction.
It will mark a new day, a new journey, a new direction, this is a moment of change, you will never be the same again and all that sounds wonderfully exciting, but it begins with a cut. It hurts.
I don’t have to do one thing to prove to anyone what Christ has done for me or who I am in Him. He has my heart and He continues to circumcise it.
Thank you for reading this would you please help me raise money for an old Bible College friend, I was her Pastor for several years, Ukrainian Svetlana Souzko, currently in Romania with her son having left her family behind in Kyiv.
Missions Paul 