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¹ I want y'all to know how hard I'm riding for y'all and the others in Laodicea. This also includes all the cowboys who I have yet to meet personally. ² My goal for them is to be a complete crew, being able to accomplish any task God sets before them. This can only be done by loving one another. Then they can have complete confidence in understanding God's mysterious plan. This plan isn't a thing, it's a person. That person is Jesus Christ. ³ Only by riding with him will we be able to tie hard and fast to boundless wisdom and knowledge.

⁴ I'm telling you this so you won't fall prey to wolves with silver tongues. ⁵ I may not be right there with you, but my heart is. Nothing makes me happier than to hear y'all have joined this great gathering.

Quit Looking for Rules to Make You Right

⁶ Don't just ride for Jesus, you've got to learn to ride in him. Turn your toes out and take a firm seat of faith in him. Then you will be anchored in place when life starts to pitch and buck. ⁷ Hold tight to the truth and your heart will be full of thanks.

⁸ Don't let yourself get hung up in the stirrup of counterfeit words and fancy philosophy. These things don't come from Christ, but arrive from human thinking and spiritual darkness of this world. ⁹ Jesus is God in human form. One who we can talk to, listen to, and relate to. ¹⁰ Only through Christ can you become the cowboy you were meant to be. No king or ruler is above the power of Jesus. ¹¹ When you saddled up with him, your sinful nature was circumcised, not a part of your body. ¹² You rode to the grave with him in baptism and you'll ride with him in the new life you have when he brought you out of the grave just as God did for him.

¹³ You were dead in your sin, but God made you alive in Christ. ¹⁴ Through the cross, your debts were paid in full—once and for all time. No longer are you condemned in your actions, but now you are consecrated by his. ¹⁵ Jesus put a whipping on the enemies of God by his triumph on the cross.

¹⁶ Don't let anyone judge you for not following their religious rules or ceremonies. ¹⁷ These things weren't a way to live, but a shadow of the life to come that is through Jesus. ¹⁸ Don't listen to the false promises of those who insist on fake humility or the worship of angels. Just because someone says they've had a vision of these things doesn't make it the truth. They are pointing at themselves for salvation, not to Jesus. ¹⁹ They don't ride for the Lord, but for themselves. They ride for their own brand and their own agenda. Jesus is the ramrod of our crew and he holds it together with his own perfection. This is where growth and maturity come from. It doesn't come from following man-made rules.

²⁰ When you died with Christ, you were freed from religion's rules and regulations. If you are freed from them, why do you continue to follow that trail? ²¹ They tell you, "Don't pick up that. Don't taste this. Stay away from this or that." ²² These rules are just human ways of trying to do what can only be done by riding for Christ. ²³ I know these regulations seem wise because they require strict discipline, self-denial, and much practice. But they are useless in conquering your sinful self. They actually open the door to sin, they don't close it.