THE YEAR OF FULFILLMENT – Part 5

“Mark of the Heart”

Psalm 138:8 ESV

 “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;    your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.    Do not forsake the work of your hands.”

Abram Is Named Abraham

Genesis 17:1-14 NLT

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life. ² I will make a covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.”

³ At this, Abram fell face down on the ground. Then God said to him, ⁴ “This is my covenant with you: I will make you the father of a multitude of nations! ⁵ What’s more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram. Instead, you will be called Abraham,^[a] for you will be the father of many nations.⁶ I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them!

⁷ “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants^[b] after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”

The Mark of the Covenant

⁹ Then God said to Abraham, “Your responsibility is to obey the terms of the covenant. You and all your descendants have this continual responsibility. ¹⁰ This is the covenant that you and your descendants must keep: Each male among you must be circumcised. ¹¹ You must cut off the flesh of your foreskin as a sign of the covenant between me and you.¹² From generation to generation, every male child must be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. This applies not only to members of your family but also to the servants born in your household and the foreign-born servants whom you have purchased. ¹³ All must be circumcised. Your bodies will bear the mark of my everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any male who fails to be circumcised will be cut off from the covenant family for breaking the covenant.”

Moses and Circumcision

Exodus 4:24-26 NLT

²⁴ On the way to Egypt, at a place where Moses and his family had stopped for the night, the Lord confronted him and was about to kill him. ²⁵ But Moses’ wife, Zipporah, took a flint knife and circumcised her son. She touched his feet with the foreskin and said, “Now you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” ²⁶ (When she said “a bridegroom of blood,” she was referring to the circumcision.) After that, the Lord left him alone.

In Exodus 12 all mails received circumcision before eating the Passover.

Joshua 5:2-5 NLT

² At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise this second generation of Israelites.” ³ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.

⁴ Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness. ⁵ Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus, during the years in the wilderness, had been circumcised.

Gilgal – to roll away

The New Covenant and Circumcision

Romans 2:28-29 NLT

²⁸ For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. ²⁹ No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people.

Hebrews 4:12 AMP

¹² For the word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.