October 6, 2003 Monday
Set Apart (Jeremiah 4)

"Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart" (vs 4)

In a sign to His people that their own sinful flesh would be the very obstacle keeping them from experiencing His fullness, God said, "Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant between me and you." (Genesis 17:10,11) The catastrophe that overtook Israel though was that while they became religious in their remembrance of the "token of the covenant" they failed to remember the covenant itself....a tragedy that has often overtaken many of our lives today. When Jesus came to confront the religious crowd in Matthew 23 He told them that they had "omitted the weightier matters of the law" and that they had become "blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." (vs 23,24) A sure indication that we have forgotten the blood covenant that our Lord Himself purchased for us on His cross is that we too begin omitting the weightier matters in search of opportunities to strain and swallow the insignificant.

"Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns." (vs 3) How often our hearts can be found sowing among the thorns with roots and weeds of vanity and sin abounding all over...all because we have failed to set ourselves apart from self and unto God. Do you realize that it's been your own sinful flesh all this time driving you to yield to the world as you've cut off access to the Lord's Spirit? Instead of circumcising your sinful flesh from your life you've been circumcising His Spirit from your life and His cry to you is to "take away the foreskins of your heart", "break up" the pride and hardness so the control can be yielded to Christ alone. We find in John 19 only a small crowd of believers at the foot of the cross....close enough not only to see Jesus, but close enough also to hear Him. Only a small few could be found at that moment who were filled with a passion in their souls to hear from the Lord no matter the cost. How long has it been since you have heard from Him? Until you become set apart from your own fleshly desires and fears your life will continue to remain in darkness. Will you cut off the access to the flesh so that you might be set apart for His glory?