Now if I continue living, fruitful labor is the result, so I do not know which I would prefer.

and that you are not intimidated by your opponents in any way. This is evidence that they will be destroyed and that you will be saved and all because of God.

For you have been given the privilege for the Messiah's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him.

Do not act out of selfish ambition or conceit, but with humility think of others as being better than yourselves.

Do not be concerned about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others.

And so, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only when I was with you but even more now that I am absent, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

as you hold firmly to the word of life. Then I will be proud when the Messiah returns that I did not run in vain or work hard in vain.

I do not have anyone else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.

For all the others look after their own interests, not after those of Jesus the Messiah.

Meanwhile, I thought it best to send Epaphroditus my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need back to you.

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 one sorrow on top of another.

For it is we who are the circumcision we who worship in the Spirit of God and find our joy in the Messiah Jesus. We have not placed any confidence in the flesh,

and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but one that comes through the faithfulness of the Messiah, the righteousness that comes from God and that depends on faith.

It's not that I have already reached this goal or have already become perfect. But I keep pursuing it, hoping somehow to embrace it just as I have been embraced by the Messiah Jesus.

Brothers, I do not consider myself to have embraced it yet. But this one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

Now I rejoice in the Lord greatly, because once again you have shown your concern for me. Of course, you were concerned for me but you did not have an opportunity to show it.

I am not saying this because I am in any need, for I have learned to be content in whatever situation I am in.

Even while I was in Thessalonica, you provided for my needs not once, but twice.

It is not that I am looking for a gift. No, I want to see that you receive the fruit that increases to your benefit.

And my God will fully supply your every need according to his glorious riches in the Messiah Jesus.