This verse follows a series of instructions from God to His people for when they enter their promised land.
It brought to mind our own promised lands, where God has led us and where God uses us. Do we defile it?
Defile is an awful thing to do. It means to soil, trample, corrrupt, violate and contaminate a place.
And the thing is is that we can do this all the time with our words and actions.
Galatians 5:19-21a says, "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these"
Did you catch that seventh term (Strife)? Wow. We corrupt a place if we are filled with strife. That's probably why God tells us to quit striving in Psalm 46:10a, "Cease striving and know that I am God;"
What is the opposite of defile? How about beautify or improve? If we have the power to corrupt a place with our actions and thoughts, we also have the power to enhance a place with our actions and thoughts. Beautify means to add beauty too, embellish, adorn. To improve a place we add value to it; we advance its progress in a desirable way.
So, how can we do these things? By living out grace-filled lives, lives filled with Spiritual Fruit. Here's the list of spiritual fruit from Galatians 6:22-23, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."
These fruit only come through the Spirit, through His Freedom. If we try to live by rules and trying to prove how good we are, we are NOT living in freedom.
"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery . . . A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough." Galatians 5:1, 9