Recovery Devotional 271 Cutting Deep

JMD Devotional 271 Colossians 2:11,12 Cutting Deep

In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, but in a [spiritual] circumcision [performed by] Christ by stripping off the body of the flesh (the whole corrupt, carnal nature with its passions and lusts). [Thus you were circumcised when] you were buried with Him in [your] baptism, in which you were also raised with Him [to a new life] through [your] faith in the working of God [as displayed] when He raised Him up from the dead.

In a Robin Hood parody by Mel Brooks, a Rabbi is confounded why his marketing strategy of offering a cost savings of “half-off” on circumcisions does not attract any business. Sure, it is base and funny in an adolescent way; but it also reveals a truth about human nature: we don’t part easily with the things of the flesh. The Law of the Old Testament was much concerned with issues of food, and festivals and ceremony, which Paul categorizes as “mere shadows of things to come.” God began with organic lessons in clean and unclean, sacred and common, to educate His people about issues of the heart. Jesus is the final exam; and most people fail. You cannot have Christ without the repugnance of the cross. The power of the Christian life is in the Resurrection, but we cannot race over self-sacrifice, self-denial and dying to self or we miss the point of following Him. The old allegiances to the world, the flesh and the Devil have to die. I have had immature Christians (i.e. “carnal Christians”) livid at my suggesting that it is expected of us to die to self. Half-off is not enough; one day it will all be stripped from us and be replaced with an incorruptible body…but such a body needs an incorruptible soul.

Luke 9:62 (NIV) Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

Matthew 10:37-39 (NIV) "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Dear God,

I find some of Your teachings hard: some hard to understand, and some that I understand are hard to take; but keep telling me what I need to hear. My body wants to be in charge; but you have ordained that my soul should rule over my body under Your Spirit’s influence. You have also said that “no man hates his own body (Eph 5:29), but nurtures it”; help me to have a healthy perspective of my physical needs and my spiritual life. You do not hate physical things, for You made it all; but the order of importance is spiritual over the physical; and only in Christ can there be harmony between the two. Please help me work out with You that harmony.

Amen

All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by

the Lockman Foundation. (AMP)

Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

*New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)

I originally produced these blogs between 2006 and 2007, which were then published in my book, JMD Recovery Devotionals. In 2010, I am sending these out to a few people as I review them and see if my point of view has changed.

If you know of someone who would like to subscribe to my daily devotional, please forward.

jamesdinsmore_32907@yahoo.com

Short, concise, thought-provoking.

More features:

http://jamesdinsmoreblogs.blogspot.com/

Christian, devotional, recovery, addiction, purity, faithfulness, integrity