He Is Our Praise
Read This Week: Deuteronomy 10
Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky. – Deuteronomy 10:20-22 NIV
The life of faith is ultimately about returning to God each day. Moses recounts how God told him to make new stone tablets after Israel broke the first ones through idolatry. The broken tablets showed Israel’s rebellion, but the new tablets showed God’s mercy. Before Israel could move forward, God had to restore them. This is one of the chapter’s great theological truths: our failure does not exhaust God’s willingness to forgive. God does not pretend that sin is insignificant, but neither does He abandon His people when they fail. He restores them and calls them to walk with Him again.
That pattern speaks directly to ordinary life. We often imagine that spiritual growth means never stumbling, never making the wrong decision, never falling into the same weakness twice. But Scripture presents a different picture. Faithfulness is not perfection; it is continually turning back toward God. Sometimes our choices leave something broken behind us: a relationship, a habit, a commitment, a season of obedience. Repentance is not merely feeling sorry about what happened. It is accepting God’s invitation to begin walking with Him again. Grace does not erase the seriousness of our failures; it gives us the possibility of an obedient future beyond them.
The language of this section is also deeply relational: fear, walk, love, serve, hold fast. Obedience is meant to flow from a life oriented toward God. This challenges a common tendency in our own spirituality sometimes to reduce Christianity to a collection of activities. We can attend worship, read Scripture, and serve in ministry, yet still let our hearts drift. God is after something deeper. He wants our allegiance, our affection, and our everyday lives.
More interesting language is the command to circumcise your heart. Circumcision was an outward covenant sign, but Moses uses the image to point toward an inward transformation. God wants the barriers around the heart removed so that His people can genuinely love and obey Him. It is possible to look spiritually healthy on the outside while becoming increasingly resistant to God on the inside. Pride, resentment, self-sufficiency, bitterness, and secret compromise can harden the heart long before they become visible to anyone else. Spiritual maturity therefore requires examining what we’re doing and what is happening inside of us. A soft heart remains teachable, repentant, responsive, and willing to be corrected by God.
Loving the Lord should change how we speak to people, interact with the family of God, treat employees and coworkers, respond to strangers, handle disagreements, spend our resources, and regard those whose circumstances differ from our own. Scripture does not allow us to separate devotion to Christ from love expressed toward others. The question is not simply whether we worship God sincerely, but whether our lives increasingly reflect His character.
He is the one you praise; He is your God. Israel’s identity was not ultimately rooted in its strength, success, or accomplishments. Its greatest possession was God Himself. We need that reminder too because life constantly tempts us to build our identity around other things. Our careers, families, reputation, possessions, achievements, failures, or others’ approval. Those things may matter, but none of them can bear the weight of being our ultimate source of worth. When God becomes our praise, we are freed from having to prove ourselves continually.
Deuteronomy 10 therefore calls us to a simple but demanding way of life: receive God’s mercy, keep your heart soft, walk in His ways, love Him wholeheartedly, and let His character shape how you treat others. The chapter does not present obedience as a way to earn God’s love. Like we’ve seen before, obedience is the grateful response of people who have already experienced His mercy. We obey not to convince God to love us, but because His love has given us a new direction. He is our God, and He is our praise.
For everyday life, that means beginning again when we fail, examining the condition of our hearts rather than merely our outward behavior, choosing obedience when nobody is watching, and looking for practical ways to reflect God’s compassion toward people who are easily overlooked.
SUNDAY PODCAST
This Week with God: Deuteronomy 10
The Message: https://reachchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/20260920message.wav
Worship Songs:
Build My Life
I Give You My Heart
Ever feel like you’re going around in circles? Like you’re right back where you started? You take one step forward, and then it’s two steps back. Sometimes you feel like a dog chasing its tail—a whole lot of activity, but you’re not getting anywhere.
I’ve experienced that in my own life. I had somewhere I wanted to go, but I kept ending up in the same place. And I couldn’t understand why.
Eventually, I began to realize that God was trying to teach me something, and I wasn’t really listening. I was going my own way, taking my own steps. And there I was, back at the same lesson I hadn’t learned the first time.
What I came to understand is that God’s plans don’t change just because I’m not following them. And Even if I am, there may be challenges He gives me that will test me, grow me, and prepare me for what is next.
So I’ve learned to approach things differently. Before I start taking steps on my own, I stop and listen to the Lord. I ask Him for direction, and then I take the next step with Him.
It doesn’t mean everything’s always easy, but there’s a whole lot more peace, direction, and progress when you choose to walk with God.
1. God’s Word does not change because you break it.
Moses broke the first tablets, but God instructed him to prepare new ones and wrote the same Ten Commandments on them. The tablets were replaced; the commandments remained unchanged.
God’s Word still stands.
2. Love and serve God with your whole heart.
Moses calls Israel to fear God, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him wholeheartedly, and obey His commands. He tells them to stop being stubborn.
Give God your whole heart.
3. Show others the love God has shown you.
God acts justly and cares for the vulnerable. Israel must love the stranger and remember their own experience in Egypt.
Remember where you came from, and show others God’s love.
Father God Wants Your Whole Heart
Deuteronomy 10
As we read Deuteronomy 10, there is such a beautiful message for us today: Father God wants your whole heart.
Moses was speaking to the Israelites after everything they had been through. They had seen God provide for them, protect them, lead them, and remain faithful to them. Yet Moses knew how easily they could become distracted and get off track.
So he reminded them of what mattered most:
“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear and worship the LORD your God with awe-filled reverence and profound respect, to walk [that is, to live each and every day] in all His ways and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
— Deuteronomy 10:12 AMP
Father God wasn’t looking for part of their hearts. He wanted all of their hearts.
And He wants your whole heart too.
He wants to be part of your everyday life—your decisions, your relationships, your plans, your time, and the things He has asked you to do.
So here’s a question to think about:
What is one thing that can easily distract your heart from spending time with Father God or being faithful to what He has asked you to do?
Life will always give you something else to do. There will be errands, responsibilities, people, problems, and distractions competing for your attention.
But don’t allow those things to slowly pull your heart away from Father God.
Deuteronomy 10:20 says:
“You shall fear and worship the LORD your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him…” (AMP)
I love that word cling.
To cling to Father God means to stay close to Him. Talk to Him throughout your day. Listen for His direction. Spend time in His Word. Include Him in your decisions. And when something begins pulling your attention away from Him, turn your heart back toward Him.
You may get distracted sometimes. We all do. But don’t stay distracted. Come back to Him.
Moses was teaching the Israelites something that you need to remember too:
Love Him.
Walk with Him.
Serve Him.
Cling to Him.
Give Him your whole heart.
Father God isn’t asking you for perfection. He is asking for your heart.
So today, whatever is happening around you, remember this:
Stay close to Father God. Don’t let anyone or anything pull your heart away from Him. He loves you, He is with you, and He wants to walk through your everyday life with you.
That’s part of what it means to choose life.
A prayer you can pray
Father God, I love You, and I want You to have my whole heart. Help me recognize anything that is distracting me or pulling me away from You. Teach me to stay close to You, listen to You, and be faithful to what You have asked me to do.
When I get distracted, help me turn my heart back to You. I want to walk with You, serve You, and cling to You every day.
Thank You for loving me, leading me, and always being with me.
Amen.
Thank You Father God, Jesus, and thank You Holy Spirit.
Love you with my whole heart ❤️
Deuteronomy Chapter 10 Verse 12
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but [reverently] to fear the Lord your God, [that is] to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being.
Deuteronomy Chapter 10 Verse 16
So circumcise the foreskin of your [minds and] hearts; be no longer stubborn and hardened.
God Is Saying To Me:
My child, all that I want is for you to have a reverent, loyal, sincere, wholesome, heartfelt and an internal spiritual desire to follow and love Me more than you love others and more than you love things.
My Story:
As I go out into the world and society, I try to remember that people are watching and paying attention to see how I respond to others and situations. Last week, I wore one of my Jesus t-shirts to physical therapy. Before I left home, I sat and prayed and asked God to help me to be able to serve Him, not just with my external t-shirt but also with my internal heart. It’s important those two things align correctly.
At times, I can struggle with wearing my emotions on my shirt sleeve and therefore, I’m not always perfect at controlling my anger or frustration and at times can have a meltdown or lash out at others. That happened in physical therapy when the therapist told me she didn’t like the faces that I was making . When I’m in pain, I occasionally make a sour face. That’s not an attractive sight when it happens and I have asked God to help me to not struggle with emotions and to be able for others to see Jesus in me.
In that moment, God spoke to me quickly and reminded me that I was in a public place and that others could see me. He reminded me also that others can see Jesus in me or not see Jesus in me.
My internal love for Christ should radiate, joy, peace, and happiness and should shine brightly from me to others. Father God is amazing and helps me to be able to remove nasty scar tissue, hate, stress, anger and replace that with His love, His will and His ways.
As I strive to be a better warrior for Christ, God is shaping and changing my mind, my spirit, my heart and my desire to serve Him. I’m learning to become teachable, delighting in sharing and serving an awesome God. He’s always with me and has never left me over the years but it was time for me to come back to Him and allow Him to do His work with me for the glory of Him and the Kingdom. I’m learning to align my shirt sayings to my behavior and actions and it always produces a joyful feeling and peace in my life.
Thank you Father God that Your Word and Your Love for me has never changed. It’s constant. You go before me clearing a way when there seems to be no way. You go behind me to protect me as I move forward and you walk with me through anything that comes my way. I love you Father God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit! May I always be mindful of the character of Jesus, have a reverent fear and always be ready when my time is done here on Earth. ❤️