How Christians must live
1Friends, God is very good to you. So I beg you to serve God like He wants you to serve Him. Your lives must be like offerings to God. You must sacrifice yourselves to Him. This means that you must live holy and in the right way and not sin, because you belong to God. You must do good things, things which God loves. 2Do not be like the people of this world. Ask God to change you completely so that you will think what He wants you to think. Then you will do things which God wants you to do, good things that please Him and that are completely right.
Believers must use their gifts in the right way
3God was very good to me and that is why I am saying to each of you: ‘Do not think you are more important than you really are.’ You must be wise when you think of yourselves and remember it is God who tells each believer how he must serve Him. 4All of us together are like a human body. A man has one body but his body has many parts and each part is doing something else. 5It is the same with us. There are many believers, but we all belong to Christ and that is why we are like a body. We all belong to each other. 6God gave each one of us gifts, but God did not give the same gifts to each one of us.
If God gave some believers the gift of preaching the messages of God, then they must tell people the right message that we believe. 7If God gave some other believers the gift of serving, then they must help and serve other people. If God gave some believers the gift of teaching other people, then they must teach them about God.
8If God gave some believers the gift of encouraging other people, then they must help them to live in the right way. If we can help other people by giving them money or things, we must be happy to give what we can. If God gave some of you the gift of being leaders, then you must work hard to be good leaders. If God gave some of you the gift of helping people who suffer, you must be pleased to help them.
Believers must love one another
9You must really love one another. You must hate bad things and love good things.
10You belong to Christ and to each other. That is why you must love one another. You must be first to respect other people.
11Do not be lazy but work hard in the congregation. You must love doing it. You must serve the Lord.
12You must be happy and rejoice because you know that the Lord will save you. When you suffer, you must be patient. Keep on praying.
13Some of the believers are poor. Help them and take care of them. You must be friendly to strangers.
14When people make you suffer and make trouble for you, ask the Lord to bless them. Don't ask Him to punish them.
15When other people are happy, be happy with them and rejoice. When they are sad, be sad and cry with them.
16Live together in peace with one another and work together.
Do not think you are very important. Make friends with people who are not important. Do not think you know everything.
17When people do bad things to you, do not try to do bad things to them. You must always do what is right. Try to do what everyone thinks is right.
18Try very hard to live in peace with other people. 19Dear friends, when people make you suffer and do bad things to you, do not try to punish them yourselves. Wait for God to punish them, because it is written in the Old_Testament:
‘The Lord said:
“I am the One who will punish people
for what they have done wrong.” ’
20But it is also written in the Old_Testament:
‘When your enemies are hungry,
give them food to eat,
and when they are thirsty,
give them something to drink.
If you do that,
they will become ashamed.
They will not want to be
your enemies anymore.’
21Do not let bad things defeat you. You must do good things, so that you can defeat the things that are wrong.
