May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father encourage your hearts and make you strong in every good thing that you do and say. God loved us and by his grace he has given us good hope and encouragement that will last forever.
May he strengthen your hearts so that you’ll be holy and blameless in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
Look at the birds of the air. They don’t plant or harvest crops, and they don’t put grain away in barns. But your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are?
See what great love the Father has given us: We’re even called children of God! And that’s what we really are. The world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.
Then no one will be able to tell that you’re fasting. Only your Father, who can’t be seen, will know it. And your Father, who sees what you do in secret, will reward you.
When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who can’t be seen. Then your Father, who sees what you do in secret, will reward you.
Jesus told her, “Don’t hold on to me, because I haven’t ascended to the Father yet. Instead, go to those who believe in me and tell them, ‘I’m ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
The Lord himself will come down from heaven shouting a command, with the voice of the chief angel, and with a blast from God’s trumpet. Then those who believed in Christ but have already died will rise first.
May God himself, the God of peace, make you holy and complete. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless from now until our Lord Jesus Christ comes.