"I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”
{Genesis 17:2} (NIV 1984)
God Almighty was and is determined to make Abraham’s descendants numerous! He stated it as an irrevocable promise to Abram (Genesis 15) and here He appears to Abram again to speak of the large numbers of descendants that God will cause to come from Abram’s body.
God makes the promise, but Abraham must do something to his body and to the body of every male as a sign/seal that he and his people have joined into the promise of God. It isn’t a coincidence that the part of his body that he has to cut away is the part of the male’s body that is the descendant maker. This takes faith on the part of Abraham. He believed God and he obeyed Him. He took something really sharp and cut away a piece of skin from the part of the body each man treats with special care, and keeps private.
Paul tells us to remember this; he makes the point that Abram received the seal of righteousness before he was circumcised (Rom 4:9-12). So it is with us, we by faith believe the gospel and then after we believe we are circumcised by the Spirit, our sin nature is cut away by the hand of God (Col 2:11,12).
Friend, is there anything missing in our lives? Is our sin nature gone? Can we look back over our lives and see that something is missing? Is there any sign that we joined into the promise of God? Thank Him for sealing us with the promised Holy Spirit, who cuts away our sin nature.
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