Deuteronômio 15

Deuteronômio 15

Barber explains that ultimately mark on both Old and New Testament believers was not external but internal… There was something in the heart of the people that was wrong and the mark that God always expected, both in the OT and the NT, was not just something external, but a heart willing and wanting to obey God… that is the mark of the person who has entered into agreement with the Lord God… this led to the promise of the New Covenant… you see in the Old Covenant, the people did not have a heart that wanted to obey God… The Law… exposed the fact that they did not have a heart, so therefore God had to promise a new one. Jer 24:7 And I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. It is an attitude that God looks for--an inward, internal attitude of wanting to obey God which marks a person as being in Covenant with the living God. This is not just one act of obedience (circumcision), but a heart attitude of now wanting to obey God (cp Ezek 36:26, 27+) in contrast to the old attitude of wanting to disobey Him. Thayer says "According to ancient oriental usage, slaves and soldiers bore the name or stamp of their master or commander branded or pricked (cut) into their bodies to indicate what master or general they belonged to, and there were even some devotees who stamped themselves in this way with the token of their gods...Paul Paul in Gal. 6:17 says he bears branded on his body, are the traces left there by the perils, hardships, imprisonments, scourgings, endured by him for the cause of Christ, and which mark him as Christ's faithful and approved votary, servant, soldier." THOUGHT - Do you have any "stigmata" (primarily figuratively speaking) signifying that you belong to Jesus? Has it cost you anything to follow Christ?