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.

¹⁶ He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. On the sabbath, as was his regular practice, he went into the synagogue and stood up to read. ¹⁷ They gave him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

²⁰ He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.

²¹ “Today,” he began, “this scripture is fulfilled in your own hearing.”

²² Everyone remarked at him; they were astonished at the words coming out of his mouth—words of sheer grace.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they said.

²³ “I know what you’re going to say,” Jesus said. “You’re going to tell me the old riddle: ‘Heal yourself, doctor!’ ‘We heard of great happenings in Capernaum; do things like that here, in your own country!’

²⁴ “Let me tell you the truth,” he went on. “Prophets never get accepted in their own country. ²⁵ This is the solemn truth: there were plenty of widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a great famine over all the land. ²⁶ Elijah was sent to none of them, only to a widow in the Sidonian town of Zarephath.

²⁷ “And there were plenty of people with virulent skin diseases in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was healed—only Naaman, the Syrian.”

²⁸ When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue flew into a rage. ²⁹ They got up and threw him out of town. They took him to the top of the hill on which their town was built, meaning to fling him off. ³⁰ But he slipped through the middle of them and went away.