Circumcise your Hearts

'Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.

Deut 10:16

For the past many months, God has been bringing me friends who are so different from me. They came from a different background and culture. Brought up with different set of values and see life differently. Just like He called Jonah to preach to Nineveh, He asked the same from me. This is never easy for me, but He has journey with me enough to pour alittle out from me to them. I saw harvest, I saw God in this.

Just when everything seems good, nice and comfortable. He sends them home. "Alright God, You have your way!" That is best expressed within me at that moment.

Recently, I befriended some who also came from different backgrounds, culture, values and life perspective. Added to that, a handful are living in an immoral lifestyle. God spoke to Jonah on Chapter 3:1 - Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message I tell you."

God told me likewise a second time, "Arise and preach to your Nineveh." My immediate response is "Oh no!" After countless episodes with Him, I moved from "Oh no!" to "Okay Lord!" I moved from an unwilling heart to a prepared heart.

And I am all prepared and ready to give them a good teaching on values and morality. All changed when I read that passage in John 4:1-26 on that particular night. Something I had missed along those lines - the Heart.

The Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well. She has came alone in the heat of the day to draw water. Obviously, she was avoiding the crowd who was all ready to give her a 'good look' and searing words. Her indecent and immoral lifestyle does not win her any friendship, approval and acceptance. And I believe she was in the knowing of her status and is willing and probably resigned to her life.

That day, she succeeded again in avoiding the 'decent' women but she ran into God instead. Jesus initiated the conversation and asked for a drink. He choose to talk about her real thirst, Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water." (John 4:10). Instead of addressing her immorality, He addressed directly at her heart's real thirst. He did not give her a sermon on purity. He doesn't even mentioned her immoral lifestyle except to say He knew what her life has been like. He choose to talk about her thirst.

Jesus addressed her real need and her real ultimate desire. He invites her to desire. That is how Jesus relates to the Samaritan woman. That is how I should relate to my Nineveh. I am not there to give them a good lashing on their immorality. How wrong can I be! (though knowing all the right things and move)

God gives us the greatest treasure in all creation: A Heart.

I could not live or love or laugh or cry had God not given me a heart. But with that heart also comes the freedom to reject. To reject His wisdom, His will, His way.

The 'Soul Detox' series further helped me to check the real motives of my heart. It cleans and purifies. It puts a check there. A person's character is determined by his motives, and motive is always a matter of the heart. And there is a joy of living from right motives from a clean heart.

I cannot be the person God meant me to be and I cannot live the life He meant me to live, unless I live from the heart.