For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

For God is my witness that I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And I pray this, that your love may abound even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight

so that you can decide what is best, and thus be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ,

filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that my situation has actually turned out to advance the gospel:

The whole imperial guard and everyone else knows that I am in prison for the sake of Christ,

The latter do so from love because they know that I am placed here for the defense of the gospel.

What is the result? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is being proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,

for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

My confident hope is that I will in no way be ashamed but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die.

but it is more vital for your sake that I remain in the body.

And since I am sure of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for the sake of your progress and joy in the faith,

so that what you can be proud of may increase because of me in Christ Jesus, when I come back to you.

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that -- whether I come and see you or whether I remain absent -- I should hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, by contending side by side for the faith of the gospel,

since you are encountering the same conflict that you saw me face and now hear that I am facing.

You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,

As a result God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow -- in heaven and on earth and under the earth --

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without blemish though you live in a crooked and perverse society, in which you shine as lights in the world

by holding on to the word of life so that on the day of Christ I will have a reason to boast that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.

Now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be encouraged by hearing news about you.

But you know his qualifications, that like a son working with his father, he served with me in advancing the gospel.

though I am confident in the Lord that I too will be coming to see you soon.

Indeed, he greatly missed all of you and was distressed because you heard that he had been ill.

In fact he became so ill that he nearly died. But God showed mercy to him -- and not to him only, but also to me -- so that I would not have grief on top of grief.

Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you can rejoice and I can be free from anxiety.

since it was because of the work of Christ that he almost died. He risked his life so that he could make up for your inability to serve me.

More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things -- indeed, I regard them as dung! -- that I may gain Christ,

and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ's faithfulness -- a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ's faithfulness.

Not that I have already attained this -- that is, I have not already been perfected -- but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead,

Nevertheless, let us live up to the standard that we have already attained.

For many live, about whom I have often told you, and now, with tears, I tell you that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.

who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

I do not say this because I am seeking a gift. Rather, I seek the credit that abounds to your account.