The start of today’s journey had me reading the first chapters of Romans.  I had finished Acts yesterday.  I always tremble slightly when I’m going to read Romans knowing this book challenges my daily living with Christ and usually leaves me wishing I were stronger and more capable.  Reading the Bible for the first time in the Amplified Version is bringing some insights I hadn’t had before.  As I got to the end of chapter 2, it states:  “…and true circumcision is of the heart, a spiritual and not a literal matter.  His praise is not from men but from God.”  I asked God to help me understand this spiritual circumcision and boy did I get filled with new information!  I googled spiritual circumcision and the first post was a writing by Steve Highlander called, “Understanding the Principle of Spiritual Circumcision.”  As I began to read it I became clearer and clearer as to this journey God is taking me through.

We all know that circumcision is the cutting away of flesh.  In the spiritual sense, God is cutting away my old flesh that I have used to “protect” me.  He wants me to be fully exposed, not so that I’m naked in body, but that I’m naked in spirit.  If God’s Holy Spirit is going to be free to use me fully, I need to be sold out to God’s purposes.  When I said yesterday I wanted to use my strength fully to share my story, I’ve done this at times using my own strength/determination.  This was particularly true as I first started telling my testimony in Celebrate Recovery.  The strength and courage to tell is not something I do to gain glory from God, it is something I do out of faith.  This faith is in God.  God uses my story and He uses your story to shed His love and grace.  The people around us wouldn’t know about this grace if we keep our story protected by “old flesh”.

I know there is much God is wanting me to learn about His spiritual circumcision, but the one thing I’ve already learned is that He does His work kindly and respectfully.  Yes, there is pain in surgery, but He always waits until we are ready for the next piece of flesh to be pared away.  How I love God for His sensitivity.