March 30
Numbers 33-34
Psalm 38:9-15
Proverbs 9:13-15
Luke 3:21-38
Clean House
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols and demolish all their high places. Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess…. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides.’” Numbers 33:51-53, 55 NIV
I was raised in Alabama where football is a part of who you are. It is not just a game. You are either an Auburn fan or an Alabama fan. You CANNOT be both. I am an Auburn fan. Win or lose they are my team. Fall is my favorite time of year and on any Saturday you will either find me at a game or in front of my TV yelling for Auburn or whatever team is playing Alabama that day. I know that sounds ugly, but that is just how it is. Growing up with football, I understand the game pretty well. I have watched as coaches have come and gone and I have come to understand something that didn’t used to make sense to me. Whenever a new coach comes in, they almost always get rid of everyone on the staff before them. They call it “cleaning house.” I used to think that was unnecessary. In any other business, if you hire a new leader, you keep most of the other staff so that you have an easy transition. They can help and tell you how they do things there. But this doesn’t work in football. Each coach has his own style, his own way of doing things. If you leave the old staff, they tend to want to keep things the way they were. We don’t like change, so we resist doing things differently. When a new coach comes in, he doesn’t have much time. He only has a few months to get everyone on his program, working as a team with his game plan. He doesn’t have time to deal with resistance. It is better to just start fresh.
God was telling the Israelites the same thing. They needed to clean house. This was going to be a new day for them. They had a fresh start. He wanted them working together as a team on His game plan. He didn’t want them to be influenced by the people living in the land now because they worshipped other gods and had evil practices that God didn’t even want them to know about. He wanted them to be a people set apart for His purposes. He wants the same thing for us. He wants to get rid of anything in your life that isn’t on His game plan. Ask Him today to reveal to you anything you need to drive out of your life so that you can be set apart for Him.
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