Victory that lasts involves destroying all those things that hold you down

Deuteronomy 7:5 But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.

Story after story in the scripture has this principle written all over it. David took down the giant with a sling and stone but to ensure it was destroyed he had to take the sword of the giant to finish the work. Many times, in the stories of the early Jews living for God then going against the Lord and serving other gods, you will find after they would come back to God, they would never destroy the altars in the HIGH places and once again a new King would arise and cause the people to forget Jehovah. Jesus would even go to the extent and tell the disciples that if your hand offends you to cut it off or if your eye offends you to pluck it out. It is better to go to Heaven with a few missing members then to spend eternity in Hell fully intact. It is the principle of holding onto victory you must destroy everything in your life that holds you down.

In this text Moses is giving instruction regarding entering the promise land. That once they are in there and have destroyed the armies and have taken the land to ensure they also “destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.” Utterly destroy everything that will hold them down. To take this to our day today this would look different for every person. Someone who struggled with drugs will need to remove oneself from relationships that would cause them to get back into that lifestyle. For someone who struggles with depression it might mean unplugging from social media, or removing Netflix because bingeing on those episodes have proven to worsen the depression. Again, for each person it is different but this I know whatever that is ensure you remove it for good. I have seen personally in my life and others when one removes those things that hold them down and pick them back up it is harder to get rid of them again and it seems to hold one down even more then before.

Victory is the will of God and to keep it we must work with Him to determine what altars and carved images in our life need to be removed.