I return thanks to my God for all your remembrance,

I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].

Then you will be able to approve of [only] what is best and be sincere and without just blame on the day of Christ's [return],

so that [what] you can be proud of may increase in Christ Jesus because of me through my return again to you.

as you hold out [i.e., offer to people] the message of [never ending] life. Then I will have something to boast about on the day of Christ's [return, See 1:6], that I had not run the race for nothing nor had worked for nothing.

But we are [really] citizens of heaven and we are waiting for a Savior [to return] from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

It is not that I am anxious for your gifts, but I am anxious to see the abundant return that will be placed to your account. I have enough of everything, and to spare.