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Ephesians 4:1-10 TLB


Ephesians 4:1-10 I beg you--I, a prisoner here in jail for serving the Lord-- to live and act in a way worthy of those who have been chosen for such wonderful blessings as these.

Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love.

Try always to be led along together by the Holy Spirit and so be at peace with one another.

We are all parts of one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future.

For us there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

and we all have the same God and Father who is over us all and in us all. and living through every part of us.

However, Christ has given each of us special abilities--whatever he wants us to have out of his rich storehouse of gifts.

The psalmist tells about this, for he says that when Christ returned triumphantly to heaven after his resurrection and victory over Satan, he have generous gifts to men.

Notice that it says he returned to heaven. This means that he had first come down from the heights of heaven, far down to the lowest parts of earth.

The same one who came down is the one who went back up, that he might fill all things everywhere with himself, from the very lowest to the very highest.

1 Thessalonians 2:9-16 Don't you remember, dear brothers, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled and sweated to earn enough to live on so that our expenses would not be a burden to anyone there, as we preached God's Good News among you.

You yourselves are our witnesses--as is God--that we have been pure and honest and faultless toward every one of you.

We talked to you as a father to his own children--don't you remember?-- pleading with you, encouraging you and even demanding

that hour daily lives should not embarrass God but bring joy to him who invited you into his Kingdom to share his glory.

And we will never stop thanking God for this; that when we preached to you, you didn't think of the words we spoke as being just our own, but you accepted what we said as the very Word of God--which of course, it was--and it changed your lives when you believed it.

And then, dear brothers, you suffered what the churches in Judea did, persecution from your own countrymen, just as they suffered from their own people, the Jews.

After they had killed their own prophets, they even executed the Lord Jesus; and now they have brutally persecuted us and driven us out. They are against both God and man,

trying to keep us from preaching to the Gentiles for fear some might be saved; and so their sins continue to grow. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last.

Romans 12:4-8 Just as there are many parts to our bodies, so it is with Christ's body. We are all parts of it, and it takes everyone of us to make it complete, for we each have different work to do.

So we belong to each other, and each needs all the others.

God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, then prophesy whenever you can--as often as your faith is strong enough to receive a message from God.

If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching.

If you are a preacher, see to it that your sermons are strong and helpful. If God has given you money be generous in helping others with it. If God has given you administrative ability and put you in charge of the work of others, take the responsibility seriously. Those who offer comfort to the sorrowing should do so with Christian cheer.

1 Corinthians 10:17 No matter how many of us there are, we all eat from the same loaf, showing that we are all parts of the one body of Christ.