Deuteronomy 13:17 — Nothing devoted to destruction shall cling to your hands, so that the LORD will turn from His fierce anger, grant you mercy, show you compassion, and multiply you as He swore to your fathers.
The Lord is a jealous, holy God. The Lord’s jealousy is His fiery, passionate, protective love for His children. The Lord’s holiness is His absolute purity that loves righteousness and hates sin. The Lord does not want His children playing with sin.
If a parent knew that his or her child was playing with something that would cause the child great harm or death, the parent would not hesitate to take that thing away and destroy it. God saw the children of Israel playing with idols and He said, “Destroy the idols!” When an entire city had been infected by the contagious disease of idolatry, God said, “Destroy the entire city and all those who have turned to idolatry.” God was deadly serious about the idolatry virus and would not let it spread to other cities.
The Lord said that nothing devoted to destruction should cling to the hands of the people who were carrying out His commandment to utterly destroy the idolatrous city and its people. Nothing and no one from the infected city was to be spared from destruction.
Why did God use such drastic measures? God is jealous and holy. He did this to protect the others in the nation of Israel from being defiled by idolatry. Will God remove something from our lives to keep us from falling into deep sin? Yes, He will. God was willing to sacrifice His perfectly sinless Son in our place to save us from divine wrath against sin. If God did not spare His own Son to save us from a life of sin, He will not spare us, His adopted sons and daughters from experiencing the loss of someone or something that could bring us into deep sin.
It is always better for us to live in the right way that Jesus has revealed to us. The way of Christ always leads us to the cross where He takes the destructive things we may be clinging to and replaces them with Himself. As Paul wrote, “Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). Cling to Jesus.
03/08/2025 Devotional
"Will God remove something from our lives to keep us from falling into deep sin? Yes, He will."
I feel like he destroyed my entire life, which had been infected by the contagious disease of idolatry. God said, “Destroy her entire life.” God was deadly serious about the idolatry virus and would not let it spread to my life.
I want to follow his right way, even if the bitter and deadly hard way.
Jesus is my Savior who gives his life to me through unimaginable suffering.
Psalms 46:1-2 NLT
[1] God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. [2] So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble…