Run with Perseverance

(2 Timothy 2:1-13)

1Therefore, we also having so great a cloud of witnesses set around us, every weight having put off, and the closely besetting sin, through endurance may we run the contest that is set before us, 2looking to the author and perfecter of faith -- Jesus, who, over-against the joy set before him -- did endure a cross, shame having despised, on the right hand also of the throne of God did sit down;

3for consider again him who endured such gainsaying from the sinners to himself, that ye may not be wearied in your souls -- being faint.

God Disciplines His Sons

4Not yet unto blood did ye resist -- with the sin striving;

5and ye have forgotten the exhortation that doth speak fully with you as with sons, 'My son, be not despising chastening of the Lord, nor be faint, being reproved by Him,

6for whom the Lord doth love He doth chasten, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth;'

7if chastening ye endure, as to sons God beareth Himself to you, for who is a son whom a father doth not chasten? 8and if ye are apart from chastening, of which all have become partakers, then bastards are ye, and not sons. 9Then, indeed, fathers of our flesh we have had, chastising us, and we were reverencing them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of the spirits, and live? 10for they, indeed, for a few days, according to what seemed good to them, were chastening, but He for profit, to be partakers of His separation; 11and all chastening for the present, indeed, doth not seem to be of joy, but of sorrow, yet afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those exercised through it -- it doth yield.

12Wherefore, the hanging-down hands and the loosened knees set ye up; 13and straight paths make for your feet, that that which is lame may not be turned aside, but rather be healed;

A Call to Holiness

(1 Peter 1:13-21)

14peace pursue with all, and the separation, apart from which no one shall see the Lord, 15looking diligently over lest any one be failing of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up may give trouble, and through this many may be defiled; 16lest any one be a fornicator, or a profane person, as Esau, who in exchange for one morsel of food did sell his birthright, 17for ye know that also afterwards, wishing to inherit the blessing, he was disapproved of, for a place of reformation he found not, though with tears having sought it.

Our Kingdom Cannot Be Shaken

(Exodus 20:18-21; Deuteronomy 5:22-33)

18For ye came not near to the mount touched and scorched with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 19and a sound of a trumpet, and a voice of sayings, which those having heard did entreat that a word might not be added to them, 20for they were not bearing that which is commanded, 'And if a beast may touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or with an arrow shot through,' 21and, (so terrible was the sight,) Moses said, 'I am fearful exceedingly, and trembling.' 22But, ye came to Mount Zion, and to a city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of messengers, 23to the company and assembly of the first-born in heaven enrolled, and to God the judge of all, and to spirits of righteous men made perfect, 24and to a mediator of a new covenant -- Jesus, and to blood of sprinkling, speaking better things than that of Abel!

25See, may ye not refuse him who is speaking, for if those did not escape who refused him who upon earth was divinely speaking -- much less we who do turn away from him who speaketh from heaven, 26whose voice the earth shook then, and now hath he promised, saying, 'Yet once -- I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven;' 27and this -- 'Yet once' -- doth make evident the removal of the things shaken, as of things having been made, that the things not shaken may remain; 28wherefore, a kingdom that cannot be shaken receiving, may we have grace, through which we may serve God well-pleasingly, with reverence and religious fear; 29for also our God is a consuming fire.