Colossians 1:29

being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Watch! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! Be strong!

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.

Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.

Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.

No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Therefore, my brothers, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,

Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.

“Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God,

He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly,

From the days of John the Baptizer until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.

that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.

in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,

having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Isn’t it even you, before our Lord Jesus at his coming?

who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,

Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found in peace, without defect and blameless in his sight.

Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

Jesus said, “Most certainly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News,

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.

Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.

But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.

who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.

comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.

For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.

But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

John answered, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

and because he practiced the same trade, he lived with them and worked, for by trade they were tent makers.

For I say through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.

But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift given to us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on your behalf.

I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing.

having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,

making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him

and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might

for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.

So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

even as you learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,

For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;

Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you,

For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.

So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.

I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

as also you acknowledged us in part, that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain,

I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.

if it is so that you have heard of the administration of that grace of God which was given me toward you,

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, salutes you, always striving for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

To this end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire of goodness and work of faith with power,

Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.

I therefore run like that, not aimlessly. I fight like that, not beating the air,

Moreover, brothers, we make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the assemblies of Macedonia,

of which I was made a servant according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power.

So we did the work. Half of the people held the spears from the rising of the morning until the stars appeared.

My God put into my heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be listed by genealogy. I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found this written in it:

“Behold, God does all these things, twice, yes three times, with a man,

My soul stays close to you. Your right hand holds me up.

because an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting of dreams, showing of dark sentences, and dissolving of doubts were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.”

He who received the five talents came and brought another five talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Behold, I have gained another five talents in addition to them.’

“Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in and will not be able.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”

Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”

He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.

When he had greeted them, he reported one by one the things which God had worked among the Gentiles through his ministry.

yes, making it my aim to preach the Good News, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another’s foundation.

Now I beg you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me,

Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord. Greet Persis, the beloved, who labored much in the Lord.

According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.

There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.

But the one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires.

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.

in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often.

seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me; who toward you is not weak, but is powerful in you.

for he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the Gentiles—

and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, those who were reputed to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision.

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,

Only let your way of life be worthy of the Good News of Christ, that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your state, that you stand firm in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the Good News;

having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

holding up the word of life, that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ, that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain.

For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God.

neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you,

Also, if anyone competes in athletics, he isn’t crowned unless he has competed by the rules.

Therefore I endure all things for the chosen ones’ sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary.

Then he said to them, “The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send out laborers into his harvest.

But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you,