[Paul said:] "Your faith makes you offer your lives as a sacrifice in serving God. Perhaps I will have to offer my own blood with your sacrifice. But if that happens, I will be happy and full of joy with all of you. You also should be happy and full of joy with me."

   Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and distressed, needy and desiring. Preserve my life, for I am godly and dedicated; O my God, save Your servant for I trust in You (leaning and believing on You, committing all and confidently looking to You, without fear or doubt). Be merciful and gracious to me, O Lord, for to You do I cry all the day. Make me, Your servant, to rejoice, O Lord, for to You do I lift myself up. For You, O Lord, are good, and ready to forgive [our trespasses] - sending them away, letting them go completely and forever; and You are abundant in mercy and lovingkindness to all those who call upon You.

   Don't let others spoil your faith and joy with their philosophies, their wrong and shallow answers built on men's thoughts and ideas, instead of on what Christ has said. For in Christ there is all of God in a human body; so you have everything when you have Christ, and you are filled with God through your union with Christ. He is the highest Ruler, with authority over every other power. You were dead in sins, and your sinful desires were not yet cut away. Then He gave you a share in the very life of Christ, for He forgave all your sins, and blotted out the charges proved against you, the list of His commandments which you had not obeyed. He took this list of sins and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross. In this way God took away Satan's power to accuse you of sin, and God openly displayed to the whole world Christ's triumph at the cross where your sins were all taken away.

   We are praying, too, that you will be filled with His mighty, glorious strength so that you can keep going no matter what happens - always full of the joy of the Lord, and always thankful to the Father Who has made us fit to share all the wonderful things that belong to those who live in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us out of the darkness and gloom of Satan's kingdom and brought us into the kingdom of His dear Son, Who bought our freedom with His blood and forgave us all our sins.

Taken from Phil. 2, Ps. 86, Col. 2, 1, The Everyday Bible, The Amplified Bible and
The Living Bible. For Lifescope book write Box 1575, Carlsbad, NM 88221.
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