No confidence in the Flesh
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Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me
to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
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Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.
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For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God,
who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh -
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though I myself have resons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks
he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
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circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;
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as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteosness, faultless.
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But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
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What is more, I consder everything a loss compared to the surpassing
greatness of knwoing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have
lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
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and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes
from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ -
the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
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I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowhip
of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
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and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Pressing on Toward the Goal
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Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect,
but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me
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Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgeting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
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I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which
God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
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All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.
And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
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Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
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Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note
of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.
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For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tear,
man live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
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Their destiny is destruction,
their god is their stomach, and
their glory is in their shame.
Their mind is on earthly things.
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But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
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who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control,
will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
