Is That Your Alarm? Maybe Not

My husband uses an alarm clock. I'm not referring to the alarm on his cell phone; I mean a bona fide, plug-it-in, glowing red numbers alarm clock. In fact, when the last one started to raise the white flag, I had a terrible time actually finding one. Yeah, he wasn't real keen on online ordering at that point either. Big surprise. There was a time, though, when we both awakened to an alarm. We worked different shifts, so we needed two separate sounds. He'd have some *beep, beep, beep*; I'd have some *wonk, wonk, wonk* -- two very different sounding alarms to distinguish one person's alarm from the other. Even though the other's sound might still awaken you from time to time, you knew not to pay it any mind, it wasn't talking to you.

This morning I was reading Colossians 2:11-12:

11 Also in Christ you had a different kind of circumcision, a circumcision not done by hands. It was through Christ’s circumcision, that is, His death, that you were made free from the power of your sinful self. 12 When you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and you were raised up with Him through your faith in God’s power that was shown when he raised Christ from the dead. (NCV)

Briefly, physical circumcision was commanded by God to Abraham and his descendants as a sign of His covenant with them. In the New Testament, Paul uses the practice metaphorically, as in the circumcision of our heart (God's intent from the beginning): a symbol of our covenant through Christ as believers, having hearts set apart to God by the work of God's grace and our faith in it. The circumcision we receive through Christ's death frees us from the power of sin and death. Those things are cut away from us, like the flesh cut away through the practice of circumcision. Just as the flesh would never again be joined to the body, sin and death will never again be joined or made a part of us.

If you are a child of God through Christ, you are no longer a part of the world; you are no longer born in the flesh. The sheep of the Good Shepherd hear His voice, and are held in His hand and kept by Him for eternity. When the bank account is nearing zero (or maybe has gotten a bit past that point) and the image on that little slip of paper runs through your mind a dozen times a day, if you are praying and waiting on the Lord, you don't have to panic. That alarm is for the old worrisome you, and he's not here anymore. When a friend calls, and they want to talk about everything that went down at the latest AA meeting, you don't have to engage. That alarm is for the old gossiping you, and she doesn't live here anymore. When the dog is barking, and the kids are fighting, and the washing machine just went off balance, and your Zoom call starts in thirty seconds, you don't have to react. That alarm is for the old angry you, and he left when the Holy Spirit moved in. When traffic is backed up for the next six miles, you have got to use the bathroom, and the clown next to you keeps jackrabbitting from lane to lane -- getting nowhere except on your nerves -- you don't have to leave him there, and you don't have to communicate with him via hand signals. That alarm is for the impatient, unkind you, and she no long lives here. 

All those things that want to suck us in to the way we used to respond are someone else's alarm. We may have been like Pavlov's dog, responding every time we heard that bell; we might have reacted with every whiff of trouble or temptation, but believers in Christ listen to the Master's voice. The faithful follow the peace and gentleness and wisdom and grace He speaks, and are becoming like Him, speaking that language, as well. The alarms may never stop and on occasion, we may hear them and be tempted to respond, but if we belong to the Shepherd, His sheep hear His voice and follow.