So if we are God's children, we shouldn't think that the divine being is like gold, silver, or stone, or is an image carved by humans using their own imagination and skill.

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

This is how we know that we love God's children: we love God and keep his commandments.

Dear friends, we are now God's children, but what we will be like has not been revealed yet. We know that when the Messiah is revealed, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.

See what kind of love the Father has given us: We are called God's children and that is what we are! For this reason the world does not recognize us, because it did not recognize him, either.

This is how God's children and the Devil's children are distinguished. No person who fails to practice righteousness and to love his brother is from God.

That is, it is not merely the children born through natural descent who were regarded as God's children, but it is the children born through the promise who were regarded as descendants.

For all who are led by God's Spirit are God's children.

For the creation is eagerly awaiting the revelation of God's children,

that the creation itself would also be set free from corrupting bondage in order to share the glorious freedom of God's children.

"How blessed are those who make peace, because it is they who will be called God's children!

For all of you are God's children through faith in the Messiah Jesus.

so that you may be blameless and innocent, God's children without any faults among a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world

Nor can they die anymore, because they are like the angels and, since they share in the resurrection, are God's children.

However, to all who received him, those believing in his name, he gave authority to become God's children,

Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use trickery or pervert God's word. By clear statements of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience before God.

At least we are not commercializing God's word like so many others. Instead, we speak with sincerity in the Messiah's name, like people who are sent from God and are accountable to God.

Though he was crucified in weakness, he lives by God's power. We are weak with him, but by God's power we will live for you.

For we are God's co-workers. You are God's farmland and God's building.

In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God because we testified on God's behalf that he raised the Messiah whom he did not raise if in fact it is true that the dead are not raised.

Since, then, we are working with God, we plead with you not to accept God's grace in vain.

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we have in God's presence because of you?

But whoever continually keeps his commandments is the kind of person in whom God's love has truly been perfected. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace by which we have been established, and we boast because of our hope in God's glory.

Here is another reason why we constantly give thanks to God: When you received God's word, which you heard from us, you did not accept it as the word of humans but for what it really is the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

but the Messiah was faithful as the Son in charge of God's household, and we are his household if we hold on to our courage and the hope in which we rejoice.

For we live, move, and exist because of him, as some of your own poets have said: ""Since we are his children, too.'

Then Paul and Barnabas boldly declared, "We had to speak God's word to you first, but since you reject it and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we are now going to turn to the gentiles.

But if our unrighteousness serves to confirm God's righteousness, what can we say? God is not unrighteous when he vents his wrath on us, is he? (I am talking in human terms.)

For this is what we boast about: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world with pure motives and godly sincerity, without earthly wisdom but with God's grace especially toward you.

Instead, in every way we demonstrate that we are God's servants by tremendous endurance in the midst of difficulties, hardships, and calamities;

For this reason, since the day we heard about this, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of God's will with respect to all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in God's likeness.

This is how God's love was revealed among us: God sent his unique Son into the world so that we might live through him.

Yet before their children had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God's plan of election might continue to operate

Instead, we speak about God's wisdom in a hidden secret, which God destined before the world began for our glory.

For all God's promises are "Yes" in him. And so through him we can say "Amen," to the glory of God.

For we are God's masterpiece, created in the Messiah Jesus to perform good actions that God prepared long ago to be our way of life.

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to respect their own family by repaying their parents, for this is pleasing in God's sight.

I have written to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known the one who has existed from the beginning. I have written to you, young people, because you are strong and because God's word remains in you and you have overcome the evil one.

If we accept human testimony, God's testimony is greater, because it is the testimony of God and because he has testified about his Son.

The dragon became angry with the woman and went away to do battle against the rest of her children, the ones who keep God's commandments and hold on to the testimony about Jesus.

Jesus told them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did. But now you're trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham would'nt have done that.

We did not expect that! They gave themselves to the Lord first and then to us, since this was God's will.

until all of us are united in the faith and in the full knowledge of God's Son, and until we attain mature adulthood and the full standard of development in the Messiah.

We have come to know and rely on the love that God has for us. God is love, and the person who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

So then, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.

Now we know that God's judgment against those who act like this is based on truth.

But if anyone wants to argue about this, we do not have any custom like this, nor do any of God's churches.

We want you to know, brothers, about God's grace that was given to the churches of Macedonia.

In union with him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of God's grace

Then God's peace, which goes far beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your hearts and minds in union with the Messiah Jesus.

As a result, we rejoice about you among God's churches about your endurance and faith through all the persecutions and afflictions you are experiencing.

By God's will we have been sanctified once and for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah.

And this is what demonstrates love: that we live according to God's commandments. Just as you have heard from the beginning what he commanded, you must live by it.

Then they asked him, "What must we do to perform God's works?"

God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that God's righteousness would be produced in us.

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus the Messiah.

Now this hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Meanwhile, the child continued to grow and to become strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God's favor rested upon him.

But God's free gift is not like Adam's offense. For if many people died as the result of one man's offense, how much more have God's grace and the free gift given through the kindness of one man, Jesus the Messiah, been showered on many people!

If anyone destroys God's sanctuary, God will destroy him, for God's sanctuary is holy. And you are that sanctuary!

They told him, "Caesar's." So he told them, "Then give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and our children!"

Therefore, God's choice does not depend on a person's will or effort, but on God himself, who shows mercy.

But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for it is not without reason that they bear the sword. Indeed, they are God's servants to administer punishment to anyone who does wrong. Therefore, it is necessary for you to be acquiescent to the authorities, not only for the sake of God's punishment, but also for the sake of your own conscience.

For the message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God's power to us who are being saved.

but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, the Messiah is God's power and God's wisdom.

For God's nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

You know that you are God's sanctuary and that God's Spirit lives in you, don't you?

Think of us as servants of the Messiah and as servant managers entrusted with God's secrets.

But by God's grace I am what I am, and his grace shown to me was not wasted. Instead, I worked harder than all the others not I, of course, but God's grace that was with me.

For God's Son, Jesus the Messiah, who was preached among you by us by me, Silvanus, and Timothy was not "Yes" and "No." But with him it is always "Yes."

This is evidence of God's righteous judgment and is intended to make you worthy of God's kingdom, for which you are suffering.

Whoever speaks must speak God's words. Whoever serves must serve with the strength that God supplies, so that in every way God may be glorified through Jesus, the Messiah. Glory and power belong to him forever and ever! Amen.

No one who has been born from God practices sin, because God's seed abides in him. Indeed, he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born from God.

So Jesus told them, "Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were utterly amazed at him.

So he told them, "Then give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness isn't meant to end in death. It's for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it."

nor did he doubt God's promise out of a lack of faith. Instead, his faith became stronger and he gave glory to God,

That is why the mind that focuses on human nature is hostile toward God. It refuses to submit to the authority of God's Law because it is powerless to do so.

Who will accuse God's elect? It is God who justifies!

For they are ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God while they try to establish their own, and they have not submitted to God's means to attain righteousness.

Consider, then, the kindness and severity of God: his severity toward those who fell, but God's kindness toward you if you continue receiving his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off.

I therefore urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices that are holy and pleasing to God, for this is the reasonable way for you to worship.

Every person must be subject to the governing authorities, for no authority exists except by God's permission. The existing authorities have been established by God,

Is there anyone who can understand his own thoughts except his own inner spirit? In the same way, no one can know the thoughts of God except God's Spirit.

From: Paul, an apostle of the Messiah Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To: God's church in Corinth, and to all the holy people throughout Achaia.

In God's own form existed he, and shared with God equality, deemed nothing needed grasping.

in case I am delayed, so that you may know how to behave in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

because the one who enters God's rest has himself rested from his own actions, just as God did from his.

And so the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." And so he was called God's friend.

Be shepherds of God's flock that is among you, watching over it, not because you must but because you want to, and not greedily but eagerly, as God desires.

The anointing you received from God abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you this. Instead, because God's anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not a lie, abide in him, as he taught you to do.

This is how you can recognize God's Spirit: Every spirit who acknowledges that Jesus the Messiah has become human and remains so is from God.

Then the twenty-four elders who were sitting on their thrones in God's presence fell on their faces and worshipped God.

They sang the song of God's servant Moses and the song of the lamb: "Your deeds are both spectacular and amazing, Lord God Almighty. Your ways are just and true, King of the nations.

for God has placed within them a desire to carry out his purpose by uniting to give their kingdom to the beast until God's words are fulfilled.

and that if it's God's will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed together with you.

To those who do not have the Law, I became like a man who does not have the Law in order to win those who do not have the Law. However, I am not free from God's Law, but I'm subject to the Messiah's law.