Finally, our friends, you learned from us how you should live in order to please God. This is, of course, the way you have been living. And now we beg and urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to do even more.

In this way you will win the respect of those who are not believers, and you will not have to depend on anyone for what you need.

What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature.

I urge you, then---I who am a prisoner because I serve the Lord: live a life that measures up to the standard God set when he called you.

Your life must be controlled by love, just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice that pleases God.

You yourselves used to be in the darkness, but since you have become the Lord's people, you are in the light. So you must live like people who belong to the light,

Now, the important thing is that your way of life should be as the gospel of Christ requires, so that, whether or not I am able to go and see you, I will hear that you are standing firm with one common purpose and that with only one desire you are fighting together for the faith of the gospel.

Then you will be able to live as the Lord wants and will always do what pleases him. Your lives will produce all kinds of good deeds, and you will grow in your knowledge of God.

Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him.

Instead, be holy in all that you do, just as God who called you is holy.

The scripture says, "Be holy because I am holy."

If, then, we say that we have fellowship with him, yet at the same time live in the darkness, we are lying both in our words and in our actions.

But if we live in the light---just as he is in the light---then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.

if we say that we remain in union with God, we should live just as Jesus Christ did.

He who calls you will do it, because he is faithful.

And so those whom God set apart, he called; and those he called, he put right with himself, and he shared his glory with them.

And he also wanted to reveal his abundant glory, which was poured out on us who are the objects of his mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory.

For we are the people he called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles.

God is to be trusted, the God who called you to have fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.

That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his power all your desire for goodness and complete your work of faith.

In this way the name of our Lord Jesus will receive glory from you, and you from him, by the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth.

God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He saved us and called us to be his own people, not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. He gave us this grace by means of Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Instead, be holy in all that you do, just as God who called you is holy.

But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.

Do not pay back evil with evil or cursing with cursing; instead, pay back with a blessing, because a blessing is what God promised to give you when he called you.

But after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to share his eternal glory in union with Christ, will himself perfect you and give you firmness, strength, and a sure foundation.