Church Membership #5

Church Membership #4

Church Membership #3

 Church Membership #2

Church Membership #1

1  Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us,

2  keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.

3  For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart.

4  In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

5  And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or faint when you are reproved by Him,

6  for the Lord disciplines the one He loves and punishes every son He receives.

7  Endure ⌊suffering⌋ as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

8  But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

9  Furthermore, we had natural fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live?

10  For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but He does it for our benefit, so that we can share His holiness.

11  No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the fruit of peace and righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12  Therefore strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees,

13  and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.

14  Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness—without it no one will see the Lord.

15  Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and by it, defiling many.

16  And make sure that there isn’t any immoral or irreverent person like Esau, who sold his birthright in exchange for one meal.

17  For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected because he didn’t find any opportunity for repentance, though he sought it with tears.

18  For you have not come to what could be touched, to a blazing fire, to darkness, gloom, and storm,

19  to the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words. (Those who heard it begged that not another word be spoken to them,

20  for they could not bear what was commanded: And if even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned!

21  The appearance was so terrifying that Moses said, I am terrified and trembling.)

22  Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels in festive gathering,

23  to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven, to God who is the Judge of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect,

24  to Jesus (mediator of a new covenant), and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the ⌊blood⌋ of Abel.

25  Make sure that you do not reject the One who speaks. For if they did not escape when they rejected Him who warned them on earth, even less will we if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven.

26  His voice shook the earth at that time, but now He has promised, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also heaven.

27  This expression, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what is not shaken might remain.

28  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us hold on to grace. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,

29  for our God is a consuming fire.

1 Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.

2  Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.

3  If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

4  But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.

5  I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.

6  My soul waits for the Lord More than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.

7  O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is lovingkindness, And with Him is abundant redemption.

8  And He will redeem Israel From all his iniquities.

18  Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Aquila. In Cenchrea he had his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow.

19  They came to Ephesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.

20  When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent,

21  but taking leave of them and saying, "I will return to you again if God wills," he set sail from Ephesus.

22  When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and went down to Antioch.

23  And having spent some time there, he left and passed successively through the Galatian region and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

24  Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures.

25  This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;

26  and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

27  And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him; and when he had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace,

28  for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

1  After these things he left Athens and went to Corinth.

2  And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them,

3  and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent-makers.

4  And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

5  But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

6  But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles."

7  Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue.

8  Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized.

9  And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, "Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent;

10  for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city."

11  And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

12  But while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat,

13  saying, "This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law."

14  But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it were a matter of wrong or of vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you;

15  but if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves; I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters."

16  And he drove them away from the judgment seat.

17  And they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat. But Gallio was not concerned about any of these things.

22  So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.

23  "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

24  "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;

25  nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

26  and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,

27  that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

28  for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'

29  "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

30  "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

31  because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

32  Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this."

33  So Paul went out of their midst.

34  But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.