determination

²⁴Do you not know that, of those who run in a race, all of them, certainly, are runners, but only one achieves the prize. Similarly, you must run, so that you may achieve. ²⁵And one who competes in a contest abstains from all things. And they do this, of course, so that they may achieve a corruptible crown. But we do this, so that we may achieve what is incorruptible. ²⁶And so I run, but not with uncertainty. And so I fight, but not by flailing in the air. ²⁷Instead, I chastise my body, so as to redirect it into servitude. Otherwise, I might preach to others, but become myself an outcast.

¹³Everything is possible in him who has strengthened me.

⁷I have fought the good fight. I have completed the course. I have preserved the faith.

¹¹For I know the thoughts that I think over you, says the Lord: thoughts of peace and not of affliction, so that I may give you patience and an end.

⁴For whatever was written, was written to teach us, so that, through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures, we might have hope.

¹⁶She answered, “Do not be against me, as if I would abandon you and go away; for wherever you will go, I will go, and where you will stay, I also will stay with you. Your people are my people, and your God is my God. ¹⁷Whichever land will receive you dying, in the same I will die, and there I will have the place of my burial. May God cause these things to happen to me, and add more also, if anything except death alone should separate you and I.” ¹⁸Therefore, Naomi saw that Ruth, being firmly resolved in her soul, was determined to go with her, and that she was unwilling to be dissuaded, and that nothing further could convince her to return to her own.

¹And so, I beg you, brothers, by the mercy of God, that you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, with the subservience of your mind. ²And do not choose to be conformed to this age, but instead choose to be reformed in the newness of your mind, so that you may demonstrate what is the will of God: what is good, and what is well-pleasing, and what is perfect.

³⁵Then who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or anguish? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or persecution? Or the sword? ³⁶For it is as it has been written: “For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We are being treated like sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷But in all these things we overcome, because of him who has loved us. ³⁸For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor the present things, nor the future things, nor strength, ³⁹nor the heights, nor the depths, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹²It is not as though I have already received this, or were already perfect. But rather I pursue, so that by some means I might attain, that in which I have already been attained by Christ Jesus. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider that I have already attained this. Instead, I do one thing: forgetting those things that are behind, and extending myself toward those things that are ahead, ¹⁴I pursue the destination, the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus.

¹Furthermore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses over us, let us set aside every burden and sin which may surround us, and advance, through patience, to the struggle offered to us.

³²And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

⁶²Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow, and then looks back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”