#DailyDevotion The LORD Looks At Your Heart, Not At Your Works

Deut. 10:16-21¹⁶“Then circumcise your hearts, and don’t be stubborn anymore. ¹⁷The LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the God, great, mighty, and awesome, who doesn’t show favoritism to one person over another or take a bribe ¹⁸but treats an orphan and a widow fairly, loves a stranger and gives him food and clothes. ¹⁹You should also love the stranger, because you were strangers in Egypt. ²⁰Fear the LORD your God, serve Him, be loyal to Him, and swear by His name. ²¹Him you should praise — He’s your God who did for you these great and awesome things you’ve seen with your own eyes.

Moses called for the Israelites to circumcise their hearts. While it was good for them to practice circumcision of the flesh to remind them of the promise the LORD made to Abraham, it was their hearts that was the problem. To have an uncircumcised heart is to be stubborn against the ways of the LORD. It is wanting to do things your way instead of God’s way.

Moses gives a reason to circumcise the heart. It is based on who the LORD their God is. He is God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the God, great, mighty, and awesome. There is no other God or Lord but him. But whatever authorities that exist in creation whom He had created are subject to Him. On top of that is God’s nature and character. He doesn’t show favoritism. He doesn’t take bribes. He takes care of orphans, widows, and strangers(foreigners) giving them food and clothes as He loves them. Such is the nature of the LORD.

If the LORD is this way, Moses tells the Israelites they should be this way also. In the earlier verses the Israelites were to fear, walk in His ways, love and serve the LORD. That is sandwiched here with fear, serve, be loyal and swear by His name. They had seen what a great and awesome God the LORD was wondering in the wilderness. They had heard how the LORD had delivered them from Egypt. So they should act, from the heart, an uncircumcised heart, all the LORD has commanded them to do. They were called to be like God, the LORD.

Now in Deut. 30 we see they will not do this. But the LORD promises at the end of the ages He would circumcise their hearts for them and they would be holy, perfect and merciful even as He is these things. In Col. 2 Paul writes, “¹¹In Him you also were circumcised, not by human hands but by putting away the sinful body by the circumcision of Christ ¹²since in baptism you were buried with Him and raised with Him through faith produced by the power of God, Who raised Him from the dead.” When Jesus baptizes us, he circumcises our hearts. He kills the old fallen nature and raises up a new nature through faith produced by the power of God. Through faith in Christ and being in union with him in baptism, the LORD gives us a circumcised heart that fears, loves, walks, servers, is loyal and swears by the name of Jesus. Through faith in Jesus we are holy, merciful and perfect. We become true Jews inwardly and made children of Abraham and co-heirs with Abraham who was circumcised of heart first and then in the flesh as a sign of the covenant the LORD made with him. Now in baptism, the LORD Jesus Christ circumcises our hearts so we can have the faith Abraham had and receive his inheritance, the kingdom of God with him.

Heavenly Father, circumcise our hearts always so we may live and walk according to your will and not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.