The Living Bible (373 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
So Christ has made us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get all tied up again in the chains of slavery to Jewish laws and ceremonies.
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Listen to me, for this is serious:
if you are counting on circumcision and keeping the Jewish laws to make you right with God, then Christ cannot save you.
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I’ll say it again. Anyone trying to find favor with God by being circumcised must always obey every other Jewish law or perish.
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Christ is useless to you if you are counting on clearing your debt to God by keeping those laws; you are lost from God’s grace.
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But we by the help of the Holy Spirit are counting on Christ’s death to clear away our sins and make us right with God.
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And we to whom Christ has given eternal life don’t need to worry about whether we have been circumcised or not, or whether we are obeying the Jewish ceremonies or not; for all we need is faith working through love.
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You were getting along so well. Who has interfered with you to hold you back from following the truth?
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It certainly isn’t God who has done it, for he is the one who has called you to freedom in Christ.
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But it takes only one wrong person among you to infect all the others.
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I am trusting the Lord to bring you back to believing as I do about these things. God will deal with that person, whoever he is, who has been troubling and confusing you.
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Some people even say that I myself am preaching that circumcision and Jewish laws are necessary to the plan of salvation. Well, if I preached that, I would be persecuted no more—for that message doesn’t offend anyone. The fact that I am still being persecuted proves that I am still preaching salvation through faith in the cross of Christ alone.
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I only wish these teachers who want you to cut yourselves by being circumcised would cut themselves off from you and leave you alone!
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For, dear brothers, you have been given freedom: not freedom to do wrong, but freedom to love and serve each other.
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For the whole Law can be summed up in this one command: “Love others as you love yourself.”
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But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always critical and catty, watch out! Beware of ruining each other.
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I advise you to obey only the Holy Spirit’s instructions. He will tell you where to go and what to do, and then you won’t always be doing the wrong things your evil nature wants you to.
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For we naturally love to do evil things that are just the opposite from the things that the Holy Spirit tells us to do; and the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures.
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When you are guided by the Holy Spirit, you need no longer force yourself to obey Jewish laws.
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But when you follow your own wrong inclinations, your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure,
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idolatry, spiritism (that is, encouraging the activity of demons), hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group—and there will be wrong doctrine,
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envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
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But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
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gentleness and self-control; and here there is no conflict with Jewish laws.
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Those who belong to Christ have nailed their natural evil desires to his cross and crucified them there.
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If we are living now by the Holy Spirit’s power, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
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Then we won’t need to look for honors and popularity, which lead to jealousy and hard feelings.
Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong.
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Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command.
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If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He is really a nobody.
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Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else.
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Each of us must bear some faults and burdens of his own. For none of us is perfect!
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Those who are taught the Word of God should help their teachers by paying them.
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Don’t be misled; remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it: a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows!
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If he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life that the Holy Spirit gives him.
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And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up.
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That’s why whenever we can we should always be kind to everyone, and especially to our Christian brothers.
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I will write these closing words in my own handwriting. See how large I have to make the letters!
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Those teachers of yours who are trying to convince you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason: so that they can be popular and avoid the persecution they would get if they admitted that the cross of Christ alone can save.
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And even those teachers who submit to circumcision don’t try to keep the other Jewish laws; but they want you to be circumcised in order that they can boast that you are their disciples.
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As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead.
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It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not; what counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.
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May God’s mercy and peace be upon all of you who live by this principle and upon those everywhere who are really God’s own.
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From now on please don’t argue with me about these things, for I carry on my body the scars of the whippings and wounds from Jesus’ enemies that mark me as his slave.
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Dear brothers, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Sincerely, Paul
Dear Christian friends at Ephesus, ever loyal to the Lord: This is Paul writing to you, chosen by God to be Jesus Christ’s messenger.
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May his blessings and peace be yours, sent to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
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How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every blessing in heaven because we belong to Christ.
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Long ago, even before he made the world, God chose us to be his very own through what Christ would do for us; he decided then to make us holy in his eyes, without a single fault—we who stand before him covered with his love.
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His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did this because he wanted to!
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Now all praise to God for his wonderful kindness to us and his favor that he has poured out upon us because we belong to his dearly loved Son.
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So overflowing is his kindness toward us that he took away all our sins through the blood of his Son, by whom we are saved;
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and he has showered down upon us the richness of his grace—for how well he understands us and knows what is best for us at all times.
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God has told us his secret reason for sending Christ, a plan he decided on in mercy long ago;
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and this was his purpose: that when the time is ripe he will gather us all together from wherever we are—in heaven or on earth—to be with him in Christ forever.
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Moreover, because of what Christ has done, we have become gifts to God that he delights in, for as part of God’s sovereign plan we were chosen from the beginning to be his, and all things happen just as he decided long ago.
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God’s purpose in this was that we should praise God and give glory to him for doing these mighty things for us, who were the first to trust in Christ.
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And because of what Christ did, all you others too, who heard the Good News about how to be saved, and trusted Christ, were marked as belonging to Christ by the Holy Spirit, who long ago had been promised to all of us Christians.
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His presence within us is God’s guarantee that he really will give us all that he promised; and the Spirit’s seal upon us means that God has already purchased us and that he guarantees to bring us to himself. This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God.
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That is why, ever since I heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and of the love you have for Christians everywhere,
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I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you wisdom to see clearly and really understand who Christ is and all that he has done for you.
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I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can see something of the future he has called you to share. I want you to realize that God has been made rich because we who are Christ’s have been given to him!
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I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great his power is to help those who believe him. It is that same mighty power
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that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in heaven,
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far, far above any other king or ruler or dictator or leader. Yes, his honor is far more glorious than that of anyone else either in this world or in the world to come.
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And God has put all things under his feet and made him the supreme Head of the Church—
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which is his body, filled with himself, the Author and Giver of everything everywhere.
