After you’ve suffered for a little while, the God of all grace will restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. He has called you to share in his eternal glory in Christ.
God has saved us and called us to live a holy life. This isn’t because of anything we’ve done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus even before time began.
But he told me, “My grace is all you need, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will gladly brag all the more about how weak I am, so that Christ’s power can rest on me.
But God chose you to be his own people, his royal priests, a holy nation, his special treasure. You’re all these things so that you can tell everyone how wonderful God is. He brought you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.
If someone does something wrong to you or insults you, don’t do the same thing to them. Instead, respond with kind words. This is what God wants you to do so that you can receive a blessing.
All things were created in him: everything in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, all kings, powers, rulers, and authorities; all things have been created by him and for him.
Finally, my brothers and sisters, whatever is noble, right, and pure, whatever is lovely and worthy of respect, if anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those things.
The Son is the brilliance of God’s glory and the exact likeness of God’s being. He holds everything together by his powerful word. Once he had provided the way for people to be made pure from sin, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
In fact, I consider everything to be worthless compared with knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Knowing him is worth much more than anything else. Because of him I’ve lost everything, but I look at it all as garbage so that I can know Christ better.
My brothers and sisters, make every effort to show that God has called you to be saved. If you do everything I’ve just said, you’ll never trip and fall.
They may have escaped from the corruption of the world, and they may have come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But if they get tangled up again in sin, and it becomes their master, then they’re worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.