Tuesday – Pentateuch

Reading – Deuteronomy 7-8

Highlight Verse:

“When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭7‬:‭2‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

You might think, “Wow, Richard wants us to learn how to annihilate whole groups of people.”

That wasn’t God’s point then and it certainly isn’t mine now.

God wanted His people to be able to avoid everything that pulls them away from Him.

The idea was to make sure these people did not drag them back into sin.

As you may have guessed, they did let many people live and those people did pull Israelites away from God.

So, what does that mean for us today?

If there is something in our lives that is pulling us away from God, we need to remove it completely.

It could be a hobby, a habit, or a possession that possesses you.

It could even be a person that you need to avoid because they are constantly causing you to sin.

Allow me this caveat. This should not be an excuse to cut out relationships that you simply don’t like.

Sometimes we have to avoid someone who is bad for us, but not at the expense of breaking a commitment you made before God unless it is for your or your children’s safety.

That said, we should each prayerfully consider whether or not there is something in our lives that is getting between us and God.

If there is, we should prayerfully and decidedly remove that from our lives.

Has there been something in the past that you had to remove to get closer to God?
How did removing that change your relationship with God?
Is there something He is challenging you to remove now?