What Does the Bible Say About Determination?

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 ESV / 198 helpful votes

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Philippians 4:13 ESV / 150 helpful votes

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

2 Timothy 4:7 ESV / 102 helpful votes

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV / 91 helpful votes

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Romans 15:4 ESV / 58 helpful votes

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Romans 12:1-2 ESV / 43 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Ruth 1:16-18 ESV / 35 helpful votes

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

Hebrews 12:1 ESV / 29 helpful votes

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

Romans 8:35-39 ESV / 28 helpful votes

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 8:32 ESV / 26 helpful votes

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV / 20 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

John 6:63 ESV / 20 helpful votes

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Matthew 22:29 ESV / 20 helpful votes

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.

Philippians 3:12-14 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

John 7:17 ESV / 18 helpful votes

If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

Isaiah 50:7 ESV / 18 helpful votes

But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.

1 Peter 2:2 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—

Hebrews 4:12 ESV / 16 helpful votes

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 16 helpful votes

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ...

Romans 12:1 ESV / 15 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Luke 9:62 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 4:4 ESV / 13 helpful votes

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Proverbs 30:5-6 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

2 Timothy 1:12 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.

Acts 17:24-28 ESV / 12 helpful votes

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

John 12:48 ESV / 12 helpful votes

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

John 8:47 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

Luke 9:51 ESV / 11 helpful votes

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Revelation 22:18-19 ESV / 10 helpful votes

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

2 Timothy 3:15 ESV / 10 helpful votes

And how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 10 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

Romans 12:11 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Acts 11:29 ESV / 10 helpful votes

So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

Mark 13:31 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Esther 4:16 ESV / 10 helpful votes

“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”

1 Samuel 20:33 ESV / 10 helpful votes

But Saul hurled his spear at him to strike him. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death.

1 Peter 1:23 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

Philippians 3:10 ESV / 9 helpful votes

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

1 Corinthians 14:37 ESV / 9 helpful votes

If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Job 14:5 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,

1 Chronicles 12:38 ESV / 8 helpful votes

All these, men of war, arrayed in battle order, came to Hebron with full intent to make David king over all Israel. Likewise, all the rest of Israel were of a single mind to make David king.

Acts 17:11 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Acts 8:1-40 ESV / 7 helpful votes

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. ...

John 8:58 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

John 3:16-17 ESV / 7 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Matthew 5:1-48 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ...

Matthew 1:23 ESV / 7 helpful votes

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Daniel 1:8 ESV / 7 helpful votes

But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.

Numbers 13:30 ESV / 7 helpful votes

But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”

2 Thessalonians 3:13 ESV / 6 helpful votes

As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.

1 Thessalonians 3:8 ESV / 6 helpful votes

For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.

Colossians 1:1-29 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, ...

1 Corinthians 4:6 ESV / 6 helpful votes

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.

John 5:39-40 ESV / 6 helpful votes

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Mark 10:11 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,

John 8:44 ESV / 4 helpful votes

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Luke 19:1-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” ...

Luke 10:10 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say,

59 Bible Verses about Determination