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:

⁷ You must be patient with discipline. God is dealing with you as his sons and daughters. What child is there that the parent doesn’t discipline? ⁸ If you are left without discipline (we’ve all had our fair share of it!), you are illegitimate, and not true children. ⁹ After all, we had earthly parents who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we much rather submit ourselves to the father of spirits, and live? ¹⁰ Our earthly parents disciplined us for a little while, as they judged best; but when he disciplines us it’s for our advantage. It is so that we may share his holiness. ¹¹ No discipline seems to bring joy at the time, but only sorrow. Later, though, it produces fruit, the peaceful fruit of righteousness, for those who are trained by it.

Watch out for dangers!

¹² So stop letting your hands go slack, and get some energy into your sagging knees! ¹³ Make straight paths for your feet. If you’re lame, make sure you get healed instead of being put out of joint. ¹⁴ Follow after peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one can see the Lord.

⁹ He told this next parable against those who trusted in their own righteous standing and despised others.

¹⁰ “Two men,” he said, “went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other was a tax-collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood and prayed in this way to himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the other people—greedy, unjust, immoral, or even like this tax-collector. ¹² I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

¹³ “But the tax-collector stood a long way off, and didn’t even want to raise his eyes to heaven. He beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am.’ ¹⁴ Let me tell you, he was the one who went back to his house in the right before God, not the other. Don’t you see? People who exalt themselves will be humbled, and people who humble themselves will be exalted.”