No Greater Love Than His
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  • application of body of Christ #3
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  • cutting the covenant
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  • Melchizedek #2
  • God's cutting the Covenant
  • Mark of the Covenant
                                                                Great is the Mystery of Godliness  Part 12
                                                        The Behavior of Belief!  Philippians 3:3  Part 1


Circumcision: What!!!???  Circumcision in the New Testament, under the New Covenant?  Paul answers with a resounding, YES!!!  This N.T. circumcision is at the very “HEART” of the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood!  And this circumcision is accomplished through “the things which are most surely to be believed” (Luke 1:1), which we have considered in the Mystery of Godliness study!  And remember, Jesus is the Revelation of the Mystery, Who He Is and What He has done! This is that Word that is sharper than any two edged sword found in Hebrews 4:12-13!  “That which we must believe” is to implant this distinguishing “mark” of the New Covenant, which is to be evidenced in all of the behavior of the adopted children of God.

Man’s foundational problem: He has a fatal “HEART” disease!!!
    Genesis 8:21   After the fall, and it’s horrible consequences on Adam’s descendants, and then the flood of Noah, because God saw that “every intent of the thoughts of his (mans) HEART was only evil continually”, surely man would have gotten it together and given himself to seek the Lord.  But after the flood, when all that is left was Noah, “the just man of integrity who walked with God” and his sons and their wives, God says, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s HEART is evil from his youth.”
    Deuteronomy 5:23-29   God even created a nation to bear His Name out of the loins of Abraham.  He left nothing to chance.  He gave them His Law, His Will and Purpose to keep His people close to him and focused upon Him.  Even in giving His Law, God laments: “Oh, that they had such a HEART in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments.”
    Isaiah 29:13/Matthew 15:8   Israel soon took the symbolic rituals and the “shadowy utensils” of the Law and its governing of God’s worship, and made a religion out of it.  The LORD says through His prophet Isaiah, “Inasmuch as these people draw near me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their HEARTS far from me, and their fear of Me is taught by the precepts (commandments, doctrines) of men.”
    Jeremiah 17:9-10   Jeremiah, the “prophet of the heart”, says that the problem is universal, not just Jewish!  “The HEART is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (incurably sick-margin); who can know it?  I the LORD search the heart, I test the most secret parts (margin), even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
    Hebrews 3:7-19   Israel could not enter God’s promised land of rest, a land of milk and honey, because of an EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF!  God has literally promised His people the moon–and the earth and abundance of crops, total provision--but they cannot receive the promises because of hard, evil HEARTS which caused them to depart from the Living God.
    Deuteronomy 10:16   “Circumcise foreskin of your HEART, and be no more stiffnecked.”
    Genesis 17:9-14  God gave the physical seed of Abraham circumcision as the mark (token) of His covenant promises IN THEIR FLESH! But physical circumcision changed nothing!!  The heart was still stone!
    
God’s solution: A heart transplant!
    Deuteronomy 30:6   “And the Lord thy God will circumcise you HEART, and the HEART of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, that you may live.”
    Jeremiah 24:7   In the baskets of figs vision, God speaks of the remnant that He will send into captivity “for their own good”.  He will bring them back to the land of promise and , then I will give them a HEART TO KNOW ME, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people and I will be their God, FOR THEY SHALL RETURN TO ME WITH THEIR WHOLE HEART.”
    Jeremiah 29:10-13  The LORD elaborates on His blessing to the remnant whom He releases from captivity.  (Please don’t use Vs 11 out of context–it isn’t a promise to indiscriminate people!!)  In Vs 12-13 He says, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me , when you search for Me with your whole HEART.”  This is the Godly, God-ward behavior of a new heart!!!
    Jeremiah 31:31-34  “I will put My Law in their minds, and write in on their HEARTS.”
    Jeremiah 32:36-41  God broadens this promise to an everlasting covenant (vs 40) with a remnant gathered “out of all countries where I have driven them.” (Vs 37) “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever.....Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My HEART and with all MY SOUL.”
    Ezekiel 35:22-32   Here the LORD makes it plain that His “remnant covenant” is “not for your sakes that I do this, says the Lord God.”  It is that “the nations which are left all around you shall know that I the LORD have rebuilt the ruined places, etc, I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it!”  And what does He do? “ I will give you a new HEART and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put MY SPIRIT with in you and CAUSE YOU to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgements and do them.”
    Joel 2:12-13a   Just before the glorious prophesy of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost (Joel 2:28-32/Acts 2:16-21), God calls His stiff-necked people to repentance, “Turn to Me WITH ALL YOUR HEART with fasting, with weeping and mourning.  So rend (tear) your HEART, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God for He is gracious and merciful......”  This was John the Baptist’s ministry! 
    
How does God accomplish this surgery?  He places the Heavenly Surgeon in us!  The one constant in the “heart covenant” passages is that God Does the heart changing!!!
    John 3:1-8   The Spirit births a whole new man!  You must be born again, in reality, a new being with a new heart.
     John 6:63   “IT IS THE SPIRIT WHO GIVES LIFE; the flesh profits nothing.”
    John 15:7-15   He is the Spirit of Truth, and the Truth that He Glorifies is Jesus.  All that the Father has given to Jesus, the Spirit declares to us, causes us to believe in our inheritance! Rom 8:12-16
    John 6:47   “Most assuredly I say unto you, he who BELIEVES IN ME has Everlasting Life.
    John 6:29   “This is the WORK OF GOD, that you BELIEVE IN HIM WHOM HE HAS SENT.”
    Matthew 16:15-17   Jesus said to Peter, “but who do you say that I am?”  Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  Jesus replies, “Blessed are you Simon, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, BUT MY FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN.”
    Matthew 22:37-38   “Jesus said to him, ‘you shall love the LORD you God with all your HEART, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is God’s will for us through His Son!
    
    It is the Spirit Who is that Heart, works in us that New Covenant Love in our new creation hearts!  And He does that by teaching us Jesus, all that He Is and all that He has done and is doing!  It is that process which produces that the God-ward-ness that is God’s delight, that is a sweet fragrant sacrifice unto Him.  
    And it looks like something!  It has an outward manifestation.  This Spirit taught belief, this unveiled mystery of Godliness in our hearts, leads to radically different behavior!  And that is what we find in this New Covenant Circumcision.  Philippians 3:3 is the mark of the people of God.
    Philippians 3:3   “for WE ARE THE CIRCUMCISION (bearing the distinguishing mark of the New Covenant in our hearts.) who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
    We will consider each of these three distinctions in later studies, but for now, consider this:
Here are two extreme behaviors “bridged” by a Glorious Person.  Worshiping God in the Spirit is completely unlike our fallen flesh.  Having confidence in the flesh makes our fleshly world go around.  But in Christ Jesus, that which is impossible with man is made possible with God!!!