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Paul's Work in Telling the Good News

¹ So I, Paul, am a prisoner of Christ Jesus for you who are not Jews. ² Surely you have heard that God gave me this work to tell you about his grace. ³ He let me know his secret by showing it to me. I have already written a little about this. ⁴ If you read what I wrote then, you can see that I truly understand the secret about the Christ. ⁵ People who lived in other times were not told that secret. But now, through the Spirit, God has shown that secret to his holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ This is that secret: that through the Good News those who are not Jews will share with the Jews in God's blessing. They belong to the same body, and they share together in the promise that God made in Christ Jesus.

⁷ By God's special gift of grace given to me through his power, I became a servant to tell that Good News. ⁸ I am the least important of all God's people, but God gave me this gift—to tell those who are not Jews the Good News about the riches of Christ, which are too great to understand fully. ⁹ And God gave me the work of telling all people about the plan for his secret, which has been hidden in him since the beginning of time. He is the One who created everything. ¹⁰ His purpose was that through the church all the rulers and powers in the heavenly world will now know God's wisdom, which has so many forms. ¹¹ This agrees with the purpose God had since the beginning of time, and he carried out his plan through Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² In Christ we can come before God with freedom and without fear. We can do this through faith in Christ. ¹³ So I ask you not to become discouraged because of the sufferings I am having for you. My sufferings are for your glory.

The Love of Christ

¹⁴ So I bow in prayer before the Father ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name. ¹⁶ I ask the Father in his great glory to give you the power to be strong inwardly through his Spirit. ¹⁷ I pray that Christ will live in your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. ¹⁸ And I pray that you and all God's holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ's love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. ¹⁹ Christ's love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God.

²⁰ With God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine. ²¹ To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever. Amen.