For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
—Deuteronomy 10:17-18 NIV
Only secure people can serve. Insecure people are always worrying about how they appear to others. They fear exposure of their weaknesses and hide beneath layers of protective pride and pretensions. The more insecure you are, the more you will want people to serve you, and the more you will need their approval.
—Rick Warren
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
—Deuteronomy 10:14 NIV
We need to learn and remind ourselves every day that God’s favor—His blessings and answers to prayer—comes to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.
—Jerry Bridges
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
—Deuteronomy 10:12-13 NIV
The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. . . . But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us. It is about God and his faithfulness to his own purposes and promises.
—Michael Horton
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
—Deuteronomy 8:17-18 NIV
Am I desiring and seeking the temporal and eternal good of my neighbor with the same zeal, ingenuity and perseverance that I seek my own?
—John Piper
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
—Deuteronomy 8:10-14 NIV
If you are selfish, and make yourself and your own private interests your idol, God will leave you to yourself, and let you promote your own interests as well as you can. But if you do not selfishly seek your own, but do seek the things that are Jesus Christ’s, and the things of your fellow human beings, then God will make your interest and happiness his own charge, and he is infinitely more able to provide for and promote it than you are. The resources of the universe move at his bidding, and he can easily command them all to subserve your welfare. So that, not to seek your own, in the selfish sense, is the best way of seeking your own in a better sense. It is the directest course you can take to secure your highest happiness.
—Jonathan Edwards
HT: What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
