Therefore, do not allow anyone to pass judgment on you in regard to what you eat or drink, or about the observance of Festivals, New Moons, or Sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come. The reality is Christ.
Let no one regard you with contempt because of your youth, but serve as an example to the believers in your speech and conduct, in your love, your faith, and your purity.
As for me, I do not regard my life as of any value, only that I finish the race and complete the mission that I received from the Lord Jesus—to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace.
Through the grace that God has bestowed upon me, I advise every one of you not to think of yourself too highly, but to regard yourself objectively, based on the measure of faith that God has granted.
Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
If you refrain from traveling on the Sabbath and from engaging in your own interests on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a day of joy and regard the Lord’s holy day as honorable, if you honor it by not going your own way, serving your own interests, or attending to your own affairs; then you will find true happiness in the Lord, and I will enable you to ride upon the heights of the earth. I will nourish you with the heritage of your father Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
He was despised and shunned by others, a man of sorrows who was no stranger to suffering. We loathed him and regarded him as of no account, as one from whom men avert their gaze.
God chose those in the world who were lowly and despised, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who were regarded as worthy, so that no one could boast in the presence of God.
Every day, united in spirit, they would assemble together in the temple. They would break bread in their homes and share their food with joyful and generous hearts as they praised God, and they were regarded with favor by all the people. And day by day the Lord added to those who were being saved.