Philippians 1:20Plain English VersionI want to be brave and stay strong for Jesus Christ, just like I always am. Then I will not feel shame. Maybe they will kill me, or maybe they will let me stay alive. It doesn’t matter. I want to stay strong for Jesus Christ and show everyone how great he is, no matter what. See the chapter |
But I will keep going to Jerusalem anyway. I want to finish the work that our leader Jesus told me to do. I have to tell people the good news, that God is good to us, and that he saves us. I really don’t care about myself, I don’t even care if they kill me, so long as I can tell them that good news.
My Christian friends, God is so very good to us. So I really want you to use your bodies to live for him. A long time ago, God told his people to give him animals to show him respect. They did it like this. They used to kill the animals and burn them up. But now it is different. Now you have to use your bodies to live for him and do good things, it’s like you are giving your own bodies to God while you are still alive. If you do that, you will make God happy. That is the proper thing to do to show that you follow God.
I’m trying to say this in a way that you will really understand. In the past you used your body for wrong things. It was like those bad things were your boss, so you kept on doing more bad things. But now you have to use your bodies for good things. You work for God, and he gets you to do good things so that you will be his special people.
So he has a lot to think about. He doesn’t just think about God, but he thinks about his family too. And it is like that for women too. A single woman thinks a lot about God, and she wants both her body and her spirit to belong to him. But a married woman wants to make her husband happy too, so she also thinks a lot about the things in this world.
Yes, I tell people the message about Jesus. Some people don’t like it, and they give me trouble. But that doesn’t matter, that message helps people that believe it. You believe it, so it helps you. So I am happy, and I keep on telling it. You know that Jesus Christ got a lot of trouble. In the same way, I get a lot of trouble. But I want to keep on helping his people. They are the church. They are like the body of Jesus Christ.
God is the one that helps people to be happy and quiet inside themselves. I want that for you, and I’m asking God himself to clean you properly inside, so that you will be his special people. I want God to help you be properly good in every way, with your body, and your spirit, and also that part inside you that thinks and that gives you your feelings. Yes, God can clean you and help you be properly good, so that at the time when our leader, Jesus Christ, comes back, God will not blame you for doing anything wrong.