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cleansing Canaan

Deuteronomy 7:5 Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their standing stones, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved images.
Deuteronomy 7:6 You see, you are a sacred people to Yahveh your God. Yahveh your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the land.
Deuteronomy 7:7 “Yahveh had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, because you were the fewest of all peoples.
Deuteronomy 7:8 But because Yahveh cared about you and kept the oath he swore to your fathers, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

cleansing Canaan

The Israelites were to be about the business of making a mark for God on the land he promised to them. But God is not happy being one among many. He wanted his people’s land to be free of the marks of all those false gods. A marker left standing would be temptation for the Israelites to pay homage to it. A sacred people required a sacred land. It had to be cleansed of its impurities.

Under the covenant with Christ, the land we are called to possess is the mind of Christ. We must cleanse our own Canaan of its unhealthy allegiances. No mark of sin must be left standing.

Lord, help us to cleanse our minds of the marks of past disloyalties.