Read Gen. 17:1-14
Eleven years have passed since Ishmael was born and all these years they think that Ishmael is the promised seed. God shows up to talk to Abram again. Not a face-to-face because Abram’s face is plastered to the ground and God did all the talking. The first thing God did was establish his relationship with Abram (“my covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.”) Then he gave him a new name: Abraham. Abram meant “high father” but Abraham means “father of a multitude”. He told him again that he would multiply him and that he would be the father of many nations, be very rich, and many of his children would be the kings of these nations. He promises, once again, to give him all the land of Canaan forever. God just asks for one thing - which would be his covenant with Abraham. That covenant would be that every male would be circumcised. All babies 8 days old, every male grown or a child, and every slave not of his lineage. This would be the sign of whose was his and whose was not. It still is according to Col. 2:11 which says that in Jesus we are circumcised with the circumcision not made with hands, but by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. This whole act in the Old Testament was to look forward to salvation of the New. Cutting off the foreskin was to signify us cutting off our fleshly desires. Everything that was born in their house or bought with their money had to be circumcised. God cares about everything that comes into our lives. It all needs to be “under his blood”. To not get circumcised meant you were cut off from being God’s people because you had broken the covenant.
Lord, truly your ways are not our ways but way past our understanding but we trust you.
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