Book of Common Prayer
Looking to Jesus
12 What about us, then? We have such a great cloud of witnesses all around us! What we must do is this: we must put aside each heavy weight, and the sin which gets in the way so easily. We must run the race that lies in front of us, and we must run it patiently. 2 We must look ahead, to Jesus. He is the one who carved out the path for faith, and he’s the one who brought it to completion.
He knew that there was joy spread out and waiting for him. That’s why he endured the cross, making light of its shame, and has now taken his seat at the right hand of God’s throne. 3 He put up with enormous opposition from sinners. Weigh up in your minds just how severe it was; then you won’t find yourselves getting weary and worn out.
Christian suffering is God’s discipline
4 You have been struggling against sin, but your resistance hasn’t yet cost you any blood. 5 And perhaps you have forgotten the word of exhortation which speaks to you as God’s children:
My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s rebuke,
or grow weary when he takes issue with you;
6 for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves,
and chastises every child he welcomes.
37 On the last day of the festival, the great final celebration, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anybody’s thirsty, they should come to me and have a drink! 38 Anyone who believes in me will have rivers of living water flowing out of their heart, just like the Bible says!”
39 He said this about the spirit, which people who believed in him were to receive. The spirit wasn’t available yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Where does the Messiah come from?
40 When they heard these words, some people in the crowd said, “This man really is ‘the Prophet’!”
41 “He’s the Messiah!” said some others.
But some of them replied, “The Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? 42 Doesn’t the Bible say that the Messiah is descended from David, and comes from Bethlehem, the city where David was?”
43 So there was a division in the crowd because of him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but nobody laid hands on him.
45 So the servants went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees.
“Why didn’t you get him?” they asked.
46 “No man ever spoke like this!” the servants replied.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.