Signs In Spain
Sujay Natson ’16
our hearts ourselves. This is why later, Moses says,
The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the
hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with
all your heart and all your soul so that you will live.
(DEUTERONOMY 30:6, HCSB)
But even this was not enough. This commandment
for Israel to cease from being stiff-necked is echoed
throughout the Old Testament. Even God’s elected people,
with the Law, were unable to fully circumcise their hearts
and be freed from sin. We aren’t any different. We are
completely unable to free ourselves from the clutches
of sin on our own. That’s why we need a Savior, and
God is asking you to recognize your need for one.
We need a Savior, and the good news is that God has given
us One. Remember how God gives us love and grace?
Well, that love and grace was fully manifested in Jesus.
While we were still yet sinners, He died on the cross for our
sins, taking on the full punishment of all of them, that we
might be reconciled with God. Then, He rose triumphantly
from the dead, which symbolized God accepting His
sacrifice for our sins. Jesus is the way, and that means
that we can only go to the Father through Him by believing
in Him and accepting Him as the Savior that we need.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Come on, tell me something I don’t
already know.” Let me tell you this, the minute you find
yourself getting bored by the Gospel, you know that something
is not right with your soul. Everytime that I have felt that I know
the Gospel already, and was tired of hearing it, I have found
unrepentant sin in my heart that needed to be confessed
to God. Never stop recognizing your need for a Savior by
preaching the Gospel to yourself and confessing sin daily.
This is how you constantly remind yourself how you need the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in your life, that is, how you
need a Savior to partner with God in His sanctification in you.
However, that is not the end of the story. Thousands of years
later, in the book of Acts, the martyr Stephen rebukes the
Jews for rejecting Jesus Christ as their Savior, saying,
You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised
hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy
Spirit; as your ancestors did, so do you.
(ACTS 7:51, HCSB)
Stephen’s words echo those of Moses, and he equates being
uncircumcised of heart and stiffneckedness with resisting
the Holy Spirit. How about us? Maybe we think that we have
accepted God’s love and recognized Jesus as our Savior, but
somehow, we resist the Holy Spirit. How this can look like
is a self-identifying Christian who lives in unrepentant sin.
One of the surest ways that I know the Holy Spirit works is
through our brothers and sisters in Christ. And it makes sense
too, since He dwells in them. Therefore, how you can allow
the Holy Spirit to work in you is to meet up with brothers and
sisters in Christ and hold yourself accountable to them through
confession of sin. By placing yourself bare before others in
Christ, you are allowing the Holy Spirit in them to work in you
through their words. This definitely requires a huge amount
of honesty and trust, and the wisdom to always respond to
repentant sin with the assurance of grace. There is no way that
we can do this on our own without hurting one another, but
the Holy Spirit that indwells us gives us the ability to do so.
By placing yourself bare before others in
Christ, you are allowing the Holy Spirit in
them to work in you through their words.
Beyond these relationships, you can allow the Holy Spirit
to work in you by circumcising your heart daily, that is,
actively fighting sin. This means fleeing from any temptation
of sin that comes up. Stop your wandering eyes from going
where they do not belong. Switch off the television when
you see something that can possibly cause you to stumble.
And intentionally avoid situations that have the chance of
causing you to sin. Personally, every time I find myself in
a situation where I am prone to sin or have sinned, I shut
my eyes and imagine myself at the foot of the cross where
Jesus hung. I ask myself if I can bring myself to continue in
this sin, knowing full well His sacrifice for me. This is when
I confess my utter need for Him and ask for forgiveness.
Circumcise your hearts, to allow the Holy Spirit to work
in us and thus partner with God to sanctify our souls.
In conclusion, let us partner with God in His sanctification
of our souls by looking at each person of the Triune
Godhead - by accepting God’s immeasurable love for us,
recognizing our need for Jesus our Savior, and allowing the
Holy Spirit to work in us. God wants our hearts, and when
we give it to Him, He will work in us and give us life.
Nicholas Chuan is a junior concentrating
in physics and philosophy.
Fall 2015
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