My dear brothers and sisters, remain strong in the faith. Don’t let anything move you. Always give yourselves completely to the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord, your work isn’t for nothing.
Whenever we pray to our God and Father, we remember the work that your faith produces, the service that’s the result of your love, and the strength to continue that comes from your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Epaphras, who’s from your community and who’s a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He’s always praying hard for you, that you’ll stand firm in the will of God and that you’ll be confident and mature.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace wasn’t wasted on me. No, I worked harder than all the other apostles—though it wasn’t me doing the work. God’s grace was with me.