Mark 8:38Plain English VersionYou know that some people are really bad, and they don’t take any notice of God. If you are frightened of them, so that you don’t tell them about me, and you don’t say that you belong to me, then later, I will not say that you belong to me. I’m God’s special man from heaven, and one day my father, God, will make me really great, and I will come back here to the earth, with all God’s angel messengers. But if you don’t tell people now that you belong to me, then when I come back here, I will not say that you belong to me.” See the chapter |
You see, I’m God’s special man from heaven, and at the end of the world, I will send out God’s angel messengers. They will get the people that belong to the devil. They will get all the people that don’t belong in God’s family. Those people are the ones that break God’s law, and they make other people do bad things.
Listen. One day our leader, Jesus, will come back, and he will ask us about the things we did. Then we will tell him about how we got you mob to trust him. And you will be there with us on that day, so we will be really happy. We are like athletes that run in a race and win the prize, because after Jesus comes back, he will tell us that we did a good job with you, and that will be like a prize for us.
We want Jesus to make you properly good and clean inside. You see, one day Jesus, our leader, will come back, and all his people will be with him. And then we will all meet God our father, and God will see that we are properly good and clean inside, so he will be happy with us, and he will not have to blame us for doing anything wrong.
But Onesiforus wasn’t like that. He came here to Rome and looked everywhere for me. And when he found me here in jail, he didn’t feel shame. He often came and cheered me up. So I pray that Jesus, our leader, will be really good to his family. And you already know about that time that he was over there in Ephesus with me, and he helped me in lots of ways. One day our leader will judge everyone, and I pray that he will be good to Onesiforus and his family on that day.
You have to tell people about our leader Jesus. Don’t feel shame about that. And don’t feel shame about me because I’m in jail. I’m here because I told people about Jesus. But don’t worry. Just go ahead anyway and tell people about our leader Jesus. And then maybe some people might make trouble for you, just like they made trouble for me. But God will make you strong, and you will not worry about that trouble.
If you are like that, it shows that you left God. You stopped following him and joined the other people in the world that hate God. They are God’s enemies. So if you join up with people like that, you make yourself God’s enemy. You ran away from God. You are just like a woman that leaves her husband and runs away with another man.