Bearing a rich harvest of that righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

But what if the life here in the body--if this brings me fruit from my labors? Then which to choose I cannot tell! I am sorely perplexed either way!

You will be engaged in the same hard struggle as that which you once saw me waging, and which you hear that I am waging still.

And that is why God raised him to the very highest place, and gave him the Name which stands above all other names,

So as to prove yourselves blameless and innocent-- 'faultless children of God, in the midst of an evil-disposed and perverse generation,' in which you are seen shining like stars in a dark world,

But all the things which I once held to be gains I have now, for the Christ's sake, come to count as loss.

Any righteousness that I have being, not the righteousness that results from Law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Christ--the righteousness which is derived from God and is founded on faith.

Not that I have already laid hold of it, or that I am already made perfect. But I press on, in the hope of actually laying hold of that for which indeed I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

For I, Brothers, do not regard myself as having yet laid hold of it. But this one thing I do--forgetting what lies behind, and straining every nerve for that which lies in front,

I press on to the goal, to gain the prize of that heavenward Call which God gave me through Christ Jesus.

Brothers, unite in following my example, and fix your eyes on those who are living by the pattern which we have set you.

But the State of which we are citizens is in Heaven; and it is from Heaven that we are eagerly looking for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Who, by the exercise of his power to bring everything into subjection to himself, will make this body that we have in our humiliation like to that body which he has in his Glory.

Then the Peace of God, which is beyond all human understanding, will stand guard over your hearts and thoughts, through your union with Christ Jesus.

My wants are fully satisfied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts which you sent me--the sweet fragrance of a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.