High Places

“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.” Numbers 33:52

Throughout the Old Testament, God set up kings to rule over the Israelites. With each assignment God had one recurrent command – tear down and destroy all high places. High places were places of the worship of other gods literally up on high hills. They stood as representation of altars extending to the heavens. Many of kings served God but stopped short of this command. In every instance their reign was negatively impacted and their rule was cut short.

We do the very same thing in our approach to God. We build altars in our minds and hearts that we exalt above the focus of God. We elevate our thinking and consume our thoughts with fear, unforgiveness or bitterness. Even worse, we follow through on actions in an attempt to allow something to satisfy our needs in place of Jesus.

Each of us have in our lives these temptations of leaving that carved image on the high hill just in case we need to resort to our fall back plan. We must remove anything that blocks the intimate flow between our heart and the heart of our God.

He has given us everything we need to survive our situations and He is faithful in everything He does. In settling my mind over the past week God has given me many sweet verses but the one that keeps infiltrating my mind is Psalm 143:5. “I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.” I gave this to my daughter yesterday as she has revisited her high places and carved images. But, she too can use these truths of faithfulness to replace and tear down her places.

Once we destroy these areas of our lives and replace them with truths from the Father we will settle in to the land He has given to us and claim our territorial rights.