holding firmly the word of life, so that on the day of Christ I can take pride because I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.

But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.

You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

Timothy and Epaphroditus

But I hope, in the Lord Jesus, to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition.

For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.

For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.

But you know of his proven character, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father.

Therefore I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me;

and I trust in the Lord that I myself will also be coming shortly.

But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need,

because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.

For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow.

Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly, so that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you.

because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to compensate for your absence in your service to me.

The Goal of Life

Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble for me, and it is a safeguard for you.

for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and take pride in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh,

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Christ,

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

however, let’s keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Brothers and sisters, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who have their minds on earthly things.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

who will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with His glorious body, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.