Carry out your salvation

¹² Therefore, my loved ones, just as you always obey me, not just when I am present but now even more while I am away, carry out your own salvation with fear and trembling. ¹³ God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good purposes. ¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling and arguing ¹⁵ so that you may be blameless and pure, innocent children of God surrounded by people who are crooked and corrupt. Among these people you shine like stars in the world ¹⁶ because you hold on to the word of life. This will allow me to say on the day of Christ that I haven’t run for nothing or worked for nothing. ¹⁷ But even if I am poured out like a drink offering upon the altar of service for your faith, I am glad. I’m glad with all of you. ¹⁸ You should be glad about this in the same way. Be glad with me!

Discipleship’s demands

²⁵ Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. Turning to them, he said, ²⁶ “Whoever comes to me and doesn’t hate father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters—yes, even one’s own life—cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever doesn’t carry their own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸ “If one of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t you first sit down and calculate the cost, to determine whether you have enough money to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when you have laid the foundation but couldn’t finish the tower, all who see it will begin to belittle you. ³⁰ They will say, ‘Here’s the person who began construction and couldn’t complete it!’ ³¹ Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down to consider whether his ten thousand soldiers could go up against the twenty thousand coming against him? ³² And if he didn’t think he could win, he would send a representative to discuss terms of peace while his enemy was still a long way off. ³³ In the same way, none of you who are unwilling to give up all of your possessions can be my disciple.