March 29th, 2013, day 88.

"Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Completely erase the names of their gods! "Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods. Rather, you must seek the Lord your God at the place of worship he himself will choose from among all the tribes—the place where his name will be honored." (Deuteronomy 12:3-5 NLT)

Our God is a jealous God. He does not leave room for other gods in our lives, He does not sit idly by and allow the worshipping of other gods to go unpunished. He even says not to worship Him in the same ways that other gods are worshipped! In the past I would have written this off as "Old Testament," and would not have paid much attention to it, but now I am looking for what it means to me now, in this time that we live in. Two things stand out to me here. First, they needed to identify the Canaanite gods, and second they needed to destroy the places that they were worshipped. How can we apply that to our lives. First, we need to look close at what or who we are worshipping, identify it. It could be money, television, food, alcohol, pornography, romance novels, celebrities..... And the list can go on and on. But first we need to identify the gods that we worship. The easiest way to do that is take a step back and look at where we spend our time. God wants to be the focus of our time, not just the afterthought. Our second goal is to destroy the place of worship. This is the hard part, because the truth of the matter is that we probably don't really want to give up worshipping the gods that we have created. We like worshipping them. But God wants us to denounce them, he wants that central place in our lives and if we are chasing after something or someone else, then there is no room for Him. So our goal is to completely erase the names of our gods. And exult His name to the place where it belongs.

God we pray today for this task that may seem daunting to us, but will be so worth it. There is nothing that can fulfill our lives like you, there is nothing that is worthy of that place in our lives where you belong. You created us with a "God-shaped hole" in us that only You can fill. Help us to remove all the junk and invite you into that place in our lives that you want to be in, and deserve.

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