There are many outward signs of being religious. For the Jews, it was circumcision. It was a symbol that you were in a pact with God. You're "with" God. During the Nazi regime, it was one way to find the Jewish people.
For Christians, you show up at church every Sunday, Friday.. you come to prayer meetings, you do your bible reading, you raise your hand when you know the answer to a Jesus question...
There are many ways to show outwardly that you're a Christian...
Yet, Paul was trying to get the Jews, especially, away from thinking only about the things we do outwardly because that wasn't a problem. It's like "Oh, I'm circumcised. I'm good." and they could go on and do whatever we want.
For Christians, it's like - "I went to church this Sunday" - I'm good for all of my religious duties for this week.
Paul was saying that even if you were circumcised and you acted in sin or held something bad in your heart- it's like the circumcision doesn't even matter..
It's what's on the inside that counts.
Circumcision of your heart -- if we really took a deep look inside your mind and heart - would we notice that your heart is fully devoted to God.
If we followed this - maybe we wouldn't hear that Christians are hypocrites so much.
we are pretty holy people. but we are hypocrites. we would tell our friends not to gossip or sin and we do it. wer so complicated in different religious ways. we are true christians when we do something from the heart, not because our parents forced us. we gotta do our church duties truthfully.!.
ReplyDeleteGoing to church isn't enough. Even serving the church faithfully isn't enough. What we have to do is to be christians in our faith in God. Inwardly, we have to be christians. Being a christian outwardly isn't enough.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I find it hard sometimes to do this. However, I have to make an effort to be faithful.