Austin Chinese Church

What happens when God gives His people power, influence, or leadership? Deuteronomy 17:14–20 reminds us that even Israel’s king is under the authority of the true King. He must remain humble, resist the temptations of wealth and power, and continually immerse himself in God’s Word. As followers of Christ, we are called to remember who is truly King, and to let His Word shape how we lead, live, and serve.

Traditions can be great, until they end up losing their meaning. In Deuteronomy 16, God attaches unmistakable purpose to Israel's three feasts of Passover, Weeks, and Booths. Similarly, when we remember rightly, our traditions can be deeply transformative.

What is God calling us to, when He calls us to generosity? In Deuteronomy 15, God lays out a call for radical generosity; one that we can live out only because He has been radically generous with us.

Growing up, we probably heard our parents or our teachers use the phrase “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” In Deuteronomy 13, Moses uses a similar line of reasoning to expand on the commandment to have no other gods, warning the Israelites against being led astray to worship false idols. In the same way, God calls us to not be deceived, to not be swayed, and to not be conformed, because we too are called to have no other gods.

Where does worship start and where does it end? Is it tied only to Sunday or the Sabbath? Deuteronomy 12 gives us a useful template to think through when it comes to the proper worship of God in our lives.

God calls His people to wholehearted devotion, not divided hearts. Moses sets before Israel a clear choice: the path of blessing through faithful obedience or the path of destruction through turning away. Every day, we are called to choose whom we will follow and what it means to follow God with our whole hearts.

God isn't looking for part of your life: He desires everything. In Deuteronomy 10:12–22, Moses asks, "What does the LORD your God require of you?" The answer is a life of wholehearted love, reverent worship, joyful obedience, and compassionate care for others. Because everything belongs to God, He calls us to give Him everything in return.

One of the greatest shortcomings for the believer is spiritual amnesia. We often forget the ways in which God has shaped us and grown us as followers of Christ. While there's a litany of things that compete for our hearts, here in Deuteronomy 8, God implies that the prosperity of the world is a key contributor to our forgetfulness. But the solution is not the rejection of the blessings of God, but to obey Him through the our stewardship of His provisions.

God chose Israel not because they were great, but because He loved them and kept His covenant. Our identity is rooted in His grace, not our performance. When we remember His faithful love, we are called to live as people who belong to Him.

Soon after Moses reinstituted the Ten Commandments with the Israelites, he then issued the foundational truth of the Shema. It would be upon this core truth by which all other things would lean on. For us, especially in the times we are living in, we must understand that without the same solid foundation of truth, the rest of our worldview will crumble.