002:028 I am therefore all the more eager to send him, in the hope that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have the less sorrow. 002:029 Receive him therefore with heartfelt Christian joy, and hold in honour men like him; 002:030 because it was for the sake of Christ's work that he came so near death, hazarding, as he did, his very life in endeavouring to make good any deficiency that there might be in your gifts to me. 003:001 In conclusion, my brethren, be joyful in the Lord. For me to give you the same warnings as before is not irksome to me, while so far as you are concerned it is a safe precaution. 003:002 Beware of `the dogs,' the bad workmen, the self-mutilators. 003:003 For we are the true circumcision--we who render to God a spiritual worship and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in outward ceremonies: 003:004 although I myself might have some excuse for confidence in outward ceremonies. If any one else claims a right to trust in them, far more may I: 003:005 circumcised, as I was, on the eighth day, a member of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee; 003:006 as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to the righteousness which comes through Law, blameless. 003:007 Yet all that was gain to me--for Christ's sake I have reckoned it loss. 003:008 Nay, I even reckon all things as pure loss because of the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And for His sake I have suffered the loss of everything, and reckon it all as mere refuse, in order that I may win Christ and be found in union with Him, 003:009 not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the Law, but that which arises from faith in Christ--the righteousness which comes from God through faith. 003:010 I long to know Christ and the power which is in His resurrection, and to share in His sufferings and die even as He died; 003:011 in the hope that I may attain to the resurrection from among the dead. 003:012 I do not say that I have already won the race or have already reached perfection. But I am pressing on, striving to lay hold of the prize for which also Christ has laid hold of me. 003:013 Brethren, I do not imagine that I have yet laid hold of it. But this one thing I do--forgetting everything which is past and stretching forward to what lies in front of me, 003:014 with my eyes fixed on the goal I push on to secure the prize of God's heavenward call in Christ Jesus. 003:015 Therefore let all of us who are mature believers cherish these thoughts; and if in any respect you think differently, that also God will make clear to you.