Spirit, not flesh
1 To the rest of you, sisters and brothers: Be happy as those who belong to the Master! I don’t get tired of repeating that, because it is for your safety. 2 Watch out for those “dogs,” those evildoers! They are the “discarded” 3 but we are the “circumcision” by the Spirit of God, offering divine service and being proud of Christ Jesus instead of having confidence in the flesh. 4 And if anyone is to be confident in the flesh, I certainly qualify. I have more credentials than anyone: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew among Hebrews, and a Pharisee regarding the Law. 6 You want enthusiasm? I persecuted the Congregations. You want cold, hard righteousness? I was blameless.
7 But whatever I had gained, through Christ I consider it lost. 8 Without a doubt I gave it all up for something superior: knowing Christ Jesus my Master. I lost it all for him and now view it as nothing but a pile of manure, in order to gain Christ. 9 I want to belong to him— not having a righteousness of my own from the law but by means of the faith of Christ, the righteousness that comes from faith in God. 10 And I want to know him, the power of his resurrection, and the partnership of his sufferings. Then I will conform to his death, 11 and perhaps even attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Now it isn’t as though I have already arrived or finished, but only that I am chasing after it in order to acquire that for which Christ Jesus surely acquired me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have acquired it, but I have this one thing in mind: Forgetting what is behind me, I stretch out for what is in front of me 14 toward the goal I’m after: the prize of the calling of God above in Christ Jesus.
15 So then, whoever is mature will agree with this, and if anyone doesn’t, God will reveal it to you. 16 Regardless of the level we’ve reached, let’s all pull in the same direction. 17 Imitate me, sisters and brothers, and take note of those who continue with the model we presented to you. 18 For I often told you about many— and I say this with tears— who go around as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They will be destroyed in the end; their god is their appetite; they celebrate their shame. Their attention is on the earth, 20 but our citizenship is in the heavens, an inheritance we await from Master Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform our lowly body into one like his majestic body, with the power that enables him to uphold everything.