Let God’s Love Fuel Your Obedience (Deuteronomy 7:9)
- Candice Watters
- Jan 4
- 4 min read
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, —Deuteronomy 7:9
As we enter the new year, we’re going back to the beginning of the Fighter Verses with Set One, verse one. We’re embarking on a five-year journey of fighting the fight of faith with God’s Word. It’s a battle because we’re prone to wander, faced as we are with the snares of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But God has not left us alone. He has given us His Word and His Spirit to help us live in obedience to Him. This is the promise and the warning we see in our passage this week.
Deuteronomy 7:9 opens with a therefore and ends with a comma. This tells us it’s not a complete thought—we need to look at the context to get at the meaning. Moses is recounting God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel in delivering them from slavery in Egypt. He says God chose to set His love on them because He loved them, and because He was keeping His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 6). Their rescue wasn’t about their goodness or might, but about God’s power and character. The rest of the sentence that follows the comma is a sober warning about what will happen if the people fail to worship God as God. This passage says He keeps covenant and love with those who love and obey Him “and [He] repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face” (v. 10).
Moses is reminding the people that the Lord who is your God is God. He is the One who delivered you. It was not the gods of the peoples in the promised land who set you free.
This is obvious to us when we read the Exodus account. God’s power was unmatched, His love beyond measure. Yet still the people must be warned not to be ensnared by the idols of the nations they will conquer. How could they possibly want to trade the God of all power and love for man-made idols? It’s unbelievable. And yet, they do.
God knows how fickle their hearts are. But this isn’t just a story about what happened to the people of Israel. It’s a warning about the human heart’s capacity to be deceived–our capacity to be deceived. As we memorize the nature of God’s character–He is God, He is our God, He is faithful, and His love is steadfast–let us also be warned that it is possible to forget all of this and be trapped by idols.
Whatever comes to you in 2026, trust that the God who has redeemed you is for you. Do not be ensnared by the gods who are not God. No amount of money or online praise or entertainment or political power or anything else in all of creation is able to save you. God alone is God.
It is necessary to love God and keep His commandments, lest He destroy us. The verse is conditional; it applies then, as now, to a particular group of people: “God keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments…” God keeps and we keep. God loves and we love. But lest we despair of our ability to uphold our side of the covenant, we remember that we are not equal with God. His covenant-keeping love is decisive. We can keep His commandments and love Him because He first loved us, and because He sent Jesus “to be the propitiation for our sins” ( 1 John 4:10, 19).
How wonderful it is to read this verse on the other side of Christmas—of the incarnation, a life of perfect obedience, and the cross. Unlike the people of Israel who could not obey, we have been rescued out of the house of slavery by the risen Savior, Jesus Christ. Deuteronomy 7:9 is not a list of things to do in order to earn God’s favor. It says, in context, because God is God, the faithful God, the covenant-keeping God who loves you, obey Him. Love Him. Respond to His redeeming love in faith and rejoice that He will keep you. Depend upon it.
This is a glorious, hope-filled promise and a necessarily strong warning. Snares are dangerous because we don’t see them until we’re trapped by them. Our safety lies in obedience. Thanks be to God that He has sent His Spirit to help us think about what is good, excellent, and praiseworthy; to set our minds on things that are above; to have no other gods before God; and to guard our hearts with all vigilance (see Philippians 4:8, Colossians 3:2, Exodus 20:3, Proverbs 4:23). There is no better place to stand at the threshold of a new year than on the ancient promises of God.
For Reflection
How will you be careful to obey God in the year ahead, not in order to earn His love, but because He has already set His love upon you?
What goals might you set for reading the Bible and meditating on the Fighter Verses in 2026 in order to put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17)?
Ask God to open your eyes to physical and digital snares, and to empower you to worship Him alone.
Candice Watters is the editor of Fighter Verses and contributor to Truth78's webinars. She and her husband, Steve, teach My Purpose Will Stand for 5th grade Sunday school at their church in Louisville, KY. The Watterses are the parents of two grown children and two nearly so.
