Determination

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.

For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.

But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. …

Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. …

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Then Jesus declared, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”