Dual Panel1And now, my friends, I wish you joy in the Lord.
The Christian's goal
TO REPEAT what I have written to you before is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
2Be on your guard against those dogs, those who do nothing but harm and who insist on mutilation -- “circumcision” I will not call it;
3we are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, whose pride is in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the physical.
4It is not that I am myself without grounds for such confidence. If anyone makes claims of that kind, I can make a stronger case for myself:
5circumcised on my eighth day, Israelite by race, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born and bred; in my practice of the law a Pharisee,
6in zeal for religion a persecutor of the church, by the law's standard of righteousness without fault.
7But all such assets I have written off because of Christ.
8More than that, I count everything sheer loss, far outweighed by the gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I did in fact forfeit everything. I count it so much rubbish, for the sake of gaining Christ
9and finding myself in union with him, with no righteousness of my own based on the law, nothing but the righteousness which comes from faith in Christ, given by God in response to faith.
10My one desire is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and to share his sufferings in growing conformity with his death,
11in hope of somehow attaining the resurrection from the dead.
12It is not that I have already achieved this. I have not yet reached perfection, but I press on, hoping to take hold of that for which Christ once took hold of me.
13My friends, I do not claim to have hold of it yet. What I do say is this: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what lies ahead,
14I press towards the finishing line, to win the heavenly prize to which God has called me in Christ Jesus.
15We who are mature should keep to this way of thinking. If on any point you think differently, this also God will make plain to you.
16Only let our conduct be consistent with what we have already attained.
17Join together, my friends, in following my example. You have us for a model; imitate those whose way of life conforms to it.
18As I have often told you, and now tell you with tears, there are many whose way of life makes them enemies of the cross of Christ.
19They are heading for destruction, they make appetite their god, they take pride in what should bring shame; their minds are set on earthly things.
20We, by contrast, are citizens of heaven, and from heaven we expect our deliverer to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.
21He will transfigure our humble bodies, and give them a form like that of his own glorious body, by that power which enables him to make all things subject to himself.