for if I cause you grief, who is there to cause me joy except those whom I have grieved?

(The Lord means the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord abides there is freedom.)

So there is a new creation when any man is in Christ. The old life has passed away, behold, the new is come.

There is no narrowness in my love; but the narrowness is in your own.

So now complete the doing of it also, in order that just as there was the readiness to will, so there may be the accomplishment according to your means.

For if there be first willing mind, the gift is accepted according to what a man has, and not according to what he has not.

Not to mention other things, there is the crowding pressure of each day upon me, the care of all the churches.

It was for this reason, lest I should be over-elated, that there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be over-elated.

For I dread that perhaps, when I come, I may not find you to be such as I wish, and that I may be found by you such as you do not wish; I dread lest there should be quarrels, jealousy, tempers, party spirit, slandering, gossip, arrogance, tumults;