I therefore urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices that are holy and pleasing to God, for this is the reasonable way for you to worship.

"Now for you, if you will prepare your heart, spread out your hands to him.

Stop offering the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have been brought from death to life and the parts of your body as instruments of righteousness to God.

I no longer live, but the Messiah lives in me, and the life that I am now living in this body I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me continuously. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,

Then Peter began to say to him, "See, we have left everything and followed you."

Be silent in the LORD's presence and wait patiently for him. Don't be angry because of the one whose way prospers or the one who implements evil schemes.

For this reason, since the day we heard about this, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of God's will with respect to all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

Stop getting drunk with wine, which leads to wild living, but keep on being filled with the Spirit.

"Woe to the one who quarrels with his makers, a mere potsherd with the potsherds of the earth! Woe to the one who says to the one forming him, "What are you making?' or "Your work has no human hands?'!

But as for you, O LORD, you are our Father; and we are clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hands.

Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently search for him.

because whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.