Deuteronomy 7:22-26 – Laying hold of our God-given life

The conquest of the children of Israel was to be a progressive one. While God has promised that they would possess the whole of Canaan ultimately, the land they would attain must be gained incrementally. They would not be given more till they could handle what had already been given to them. God knew if the children of Israel were given the land all at once, they would be overwhelmed. Besides, the areas they could not populate would be inhabited by wild beasts. So in Deuteronomy 7:22, Moses told them that while God had promised them the whole of Canaan, He would only be clearing them area by area progressively. Wisdom dictated that move. They were only given what they could handle so that they would not be overly burdened.  

We see in these verses that conquest of the land must be a divine-human collaboration. God would do His part, but the Israelites must do theirs. He would give the enemies into their hands, but it would be their responsibility to get rid of them. They were expected to annihilate them and leave nothing, especially their graven images which would create trouble for them. More so, they must leave no trace of anything related to the idols. God pointed especially to the silver and the gold that would be used to make those idols. For God knew that anyone who eyed those things could be ensnared by them. Their greed for those things would soon lure them into compromise. God made it clear that idols and anything that was used to make them would be an abomination to Him. His people must have nothing to do with it, much less bring them into their homes.    

Our life is God’s promised land to us, and He wants us to take possession of it. We must aim to take the whole of every dimension of life – the spirit, mind, soul, and body. It is true that we must take hold of each area of life incrementally. In the spiritual dimension, we must always put God first in everything. We need to keep connecting with Him. Through cultivating essential spiritual disciplines we will be enabled to live a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led life, nurturing the fruit of the Spirit. For the dimension of our mind, we need to control what we think and muse about most of the time. What captures our mind, captures us! We must constantly remove old worldly values and renew them with the values derived from God’s Word. Then we need to take care of our emotional life. Emotion has to do with feelings and relationships.  Remember we are called to love God as well as to love others. Finally, we must also have the right handling of our physical bodies. Develop proper balance in our activities in life. Have a well-balanced life, rightly handling rest, work, diet, and exercise. Like education, we won’t be able to go to the next level until we have attained the level that precedes it. Until we have a firm grasp of one level, how can we go to the level after it? Our call to wholeness in life cannot be ignored. It must be rightly handled. Be sure to exercise faithfulness and obedience and so have a fruitful and fulfilling journey with God. Develop godly traits in all areas of our life. It is needful!