God's Mark

Do I have the mark of God on my heart?

In the Old Testament of the Bible God asked the children of Israel to be circumcised as a way to identify them as His covenant people.   “All must be circumcised. Your bodies will bear the mark of my everlasting covenant.” (Exodus 17.9-13 NLT)  But frequently throughout the Bible, God constantly had to remind them that it wasn’t enough to just have this outward sign, their hearts needed to reflect this covenant relationship as well.

In Romans we see Paul admonishing the Jewish Christians for taking pride in their position and in their knowledge and yet having hearts that were far from God.  (Romans 2.17-24)  We would say they were self-righteous.  In other words, they were in the business of making themselves right in the eyes of God.  Ouch!

What had happened to move them in this direction?  These were followers of Jesus.  Jews, who at one point had acknowledged that the only way to eternal life was through Jesus Christ, not the law they had grown up with.  But they fell back into their list of rules and superiority and neglected their own hearts.  Their place of safety became their knowledge and their rules.

It’s easy to point the finger at these Jewish believers and wonder how they could be so blind.  And yet . . . we do the same thing.  We find safety in rules and regulations.  And we embrace the visible, material and superficial. 

John Ortberg in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted says this, “The great danger that arises when we don’t experience authentic transformation is that we will settle for what might be called pseudo-transformation.  We know that as Christians we are called to “come out and be separate,” that our faith and spiritual commitment should make us different somehow.  But if we are not marked by greater and greater amounts of love and joy, we will inevitably look for substitute ways of distinguishing ourselves from those who are not Christians.  This deep pattern is almost inescapable for religious people:  If we do not become changed from the inside-out we will be tempted to find external methods to satisfy our need to feel that we’re different from those outside the faith.  If we cannot be transformed, we will settle for being informed or conformed.”

Paul says in Romans 2.29, “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 people.”

I love how The Messsage says this, “It’s the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, which makes a Jew.”

Do we have God’s mark on our hearts or are we settling for outward conformity to appease our guilt and help us fit into the religious community?

Is our life marked by more and more love, more and more patience,  and more and more joy or do we gravitate to the list of things we can check off to feel okay about ourselves?  Are we trying to make ourselves right or allowing God to do it?

Self-producing righteousness causes us to become infatuated with what other people think.  Consumed with desire for people’s praise.  Obsessed with how we are being perceived.

Are you settling for outside conformity or inside transformation?