Reading from the New Testament

Jesus teaches about what God is like. Jesus prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your Son, so that the Son may give glory to you. For you gave him authority over all people, so that he might give eternal life to all those you gave him. And eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”
John 17.1b-3

Jesus said:

“I am the light of the world,” he said. “Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.”
John 8.12b

Jesus saw the crowds and went up a hill, where he sat down.
His disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them:

“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor;
the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!

“Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them!

“Happy are those who are humble;
they will receive what God has promised!

“Happy are those whose greatest
desire is to do what God requires.
God will satisfy them fully!

“Happy are those who are merciful to others;
God will be merciful to them!

“Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God!

“Happy are those who work for peace;
God will call them his children!

“Happy are those who are persecuted because they
do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven
belongs to them!

“Happy are you when people insult you and
persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies
against you because you are my followers.
Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you
in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived
before you were persecuted.”
Matthew 5.1-12

“Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find;
knock, and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks
will find, and the door will be opened to those who knock.
Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone
when he asks for bread? Or would you give him a snake
when he asks for a fish? As bad as you are, you know how
to give good things to your children. How much more, then,
will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
Matthew 7.7-11

Jesus said to the disciples, “And so I tell you not to worry
about the food you need to stay alive or about the clothes
you need for your body. Life is much more important than food,
and the body much more important than clothes. Look at the crows:
they don’t plant seeds or gather a harvest; they don’t have
storage rooms or barns; God feeds them! You are worth so much more
than birds! Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?
If you can’t manage even such a small thing, why worry about
the other things? Look how the wild flowers grow:
they don’t work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that
not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful
as one of these flowers. It is God who clothes the wild grass – grass
that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven.
Won’t he be all the more sure to clothe you?
What little faith you have!

“So don’t be all upset, always concerned about what you will
eat and drink. (For the pagans of this world are always concerned
about all these things.) Your Father knows that you need these things.
Instead, be concerned with his Kingdom, and he will provide you
with these things.”
Luke 12.22-31

The disciples came to Jesus, asking, “Who is the greatest
in the Kingdom of heaven?”

So Jesus called a child to come and stand in front of them,
and said, “I assure you that unless you change and become
like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.
The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is the one
who humbles himself and becomes like this child.
And whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this,
welcomes me.”
Matthew 18.1-5

“When the Son of Man comes as King and all the angels with him,
he will sit on his royal throne, and the people of all the nations
will be gathered before him. Then he will divide them
into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will put the righteous people at his right and the others
at his left. Then the King will say to the people on his right,
‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom
which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world.
I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink;
I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked
and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me,
in prison and you visited me.’ The righteous will then answer him,
‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty
and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger
and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you?
When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this
for one of the least important of these followers of mine,
you did it for me!’
Matthew 25.31-40

Jesus tells his disciples that he will suffer and be put to death, but that he will rise to life three days later. He teaches about what it means to serve and be one of his followers.

Jesus began to teach his disciples: “The Son of Man must
suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests,
and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death,
but three days later he will rise to life.” He made this
very clear to them. So Peter took him aside
and began to rebuke him. But Jesus turned around,
looked at his disciples, and rebuked Peter.
“Get away from me, Satan,” he said. “Your thoughts don’t come
from God but from human nature!”

Then Jesus called the crowd and his disciples to him.
“If any of you want to come with me,” he told them,
“you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me.
For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it;
but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel,
you will save it. Do you gain anything if you win
the whole world but lose your life? Of course not!
There is nothing you can give to regain your life.
If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching in this
godless and wicked day, then the Son of Man will be ashamed
of you when he comes in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels.”
Mark 8.31-38

Jesus said:

“If one of you wants to be great, you must be
the servant of the rest; and if one of you
wants to be first, you must be the slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served;
he came to serve and to give his life to redeem many people.”
Mark 10.43b-45

The apostle Paul writes about God’s abundant grace and how, through God’s love and mercy, he was brought to faith and turned his life around.

I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me

strength for my work. I thank him for considering me worthy
and appointing me to serve him, even though in the past
I spoke evil of him and persecuted and insulted him.
But God was merciful to me because I did not yet have faith
and so did not know what I was doing. And our Lord poured out
his abundant grace on me and gave me the faith and love
which are ours in union with Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 1.12-14

The apostle Paul tells us how we are reconciled, or put right, with God.

God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it. God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence. But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.
Romans 3.21-24

We are assured that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Certainly not God,
who did not even keep back his own Son, but offered him for us all!
He gave us his Son – will he not also freely give us all things?
Who will accuse God’s chosen people?
God himself declares them not guilty!
Who, then, will condemn them?
Not Christ Jesus, who died, or rather,
who was raised to life and is at the right side of God,
pleading with him for us!
Who, then, can separate us from the love of Christ?
Can trouble do it, or hardship or persecution
or hunger or poverty or danger or death?
…

No, in all these things we have complete victory
through him who loved us! For I am certain that
nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life,
neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers,
neither the present nor the future, neither the world above
nor the world below – there is nothing in all creation
that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God
which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8.31b-35,37-39

Because of God’s grace, we are saved through faith.

It is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith.
It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift,
so that no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are,
and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us
for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared
for us to do.
Ephesians 2.8-10

To know God is to know love.

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love
comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God
and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God,
for God is love. And God showed his love for us
by sending his only Son into the world,
so that we might have life through him.
This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means
by which our sins are forgiven.
1 John 4.7-10

Through Jesus Christ, our Savior, we have been given a new birth and eternal life.

When the kindness and love of God our Savior was revealed,
he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds
that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy
that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth
and new life by washing us. God poured out
the Holy Spirit abundantly on us through Jesus Christ our Savior,
so that by his grace we might be put right with God
and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for.
This is a true saying.
Titus 3.4-8a