Ephesians 4

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¹So now I am asking you to live the right way. You see, I follow our leader, Jesus, so they put me in jail. And it’s like that for you too. God picked you to be his own people, so you have to live his way.

²Don’t think that you are more important than other people. You have to be good to other people, you have to listen to them and try to understand them. Don’t get angry with each other, but you have to love each other all the time.

³Try hard to let God’s spirit keep you together as friends, without any trouble between you.

⁴All of God’s people are like parts of one body, with the one Holy Spirit living in all of us. God picked you to be his own people, so we are sure that one day he will make us all really happy.

⁵We all have only one leader. There is only one true message that we all believe. They baptised all of us to show that we follow Jesus.

⁶There is only one God. He is the Father of all of us. He is the biggest boss over everything. He is inside us all, and he is using us all.

⁷You see, Jesus Christ has been good to us. He has given us each a spiritual gift. He gives each one of us the spiritual power to do something properly. He himself picks the one to get each gift.

⁸Long ago, God got one of his men to write this in his book, “He went up to the highest place, and he made many prisoners follow him. And he gave gifts to men.”

⁹That man wrote, “He went up.” But think about it. He couldn’t go up unless he first came down. You see, at first Jesus Christ came down to the low parts of the earth, and then he went back up.

¹⁰It was the same man, Jesus, that came down here and then went up high, above all the sky. So now he can be everywhere.

¹¹And Jesus Christ gives these special gifts to his people, so that they can help other people in the church. He gave some of his people the power to be his special workers and leaders. And he gave other people the power to tell everyone his messages. And he gave some people the power to get other people to believe in Jesus. And he gave some people the power to be pastors, to look after Christians and teach them God’s way. He gave all these gifts to get God’s people ready to work together for him. And we are God’s people. We are like the body of Jesus Christ here on the earth. God works in us like this, so that this body gets bigger and stronger.

¹³God will keep using the people with these gifts till he gets us all to believe in God’s son, and we get to know him properly, so that we all join on to each other and work together properly. Then we, God’s people, will become like Jesus Christ himself. We will become what God wants us to be.

¹⁴So don’t be like little kids. Some people might try to trick us, and get us to believe things that are not true. They might try to teach different ideas, and mix up our minds. But we will not be like children any more. We will not change what we believe whenever somebody new comes and tells us something different. But instead, we will be strong.

¹⁵We will love people, and at the same time we will tell them the true message, so that we will become more like Jesus Christ. It’s like we are his body and he is the head.

¹⁶He holds the whole body together. He’s like the strings in a body that join every part together. Each of us is a different part of his body, and if every one of us does our job properly, and if we love each other, the whole body will grow, and it will get stronger.

¹⁷I’m telling you this message that our leader, Jesus, wants me to tell you, so you have to take notice of it. Don’t live any more like the people that don’t know God. They can’t think straight.

¹⁸They can’t understand anything properly. It is like their minds are in darkness. They don’t want to know God, and they are a long way away from him. He doesn’t give them life. They do bad things, but they never feel sorry about it.

¹⁹They don’t know what is right, or what is wrong, any more. They only want to do all kinds of bad things, and dirty things, and they really want to keep on doing those wrong things.

²⁰But you didn’t learn anything like that when you learned about Jesus Christ.

²¹I’m sure that you heard the good story about Jesus, and learned the true things that Jesus taught to people.

²²You see, we all have a bad part inside us that gets us to only think about what we want for ourselves, and it gets us to go wrong, and it gets us to do bad things. But now you have to turn around and be a different kind of person. So don’t take any notice of that old bad part inside you. Don’t think about those bad things any more,

²³but let God’s spirit show you how to think in a new way.

²⁴This is a new thing inside you, and it makes you more like God. His spirit wants you to only do what is right, and what is good, and what is true. So you have to let his spirit make you into a new person, more like God.

²⁵You know, we all belong to Jesus, like each one of us is a part of his body. So stop lying to each other. Only say the things that are true.

²⁶And if you get angry, don’t do anything wrong. Don’t stay angry all day, but quickly stop being angry.

²⁷Don’t give the devil a chance to get you to do wrong.

²⁸If you steal things from other people, you have to stop doing that. Instead, you have to do honest work to get things for yourself, and you have to give things to other people that need them.

²⁹And don’t swear, or say anything that is bad. But say good things that will help people, and make them stronger. In this way your words will be good for those that hear you.

³⁰Don’t make the Holy Spirit sad. Remember, he is in you, so you can be really sure that you belong to God, and that one day God will save you properly.

³¹So don’t get upset with people, and don’t think about them in a bad way. Don’t get angry with them. Don’t argue or fight with people. Don’t yell at anyone, or say bad things about them. Don’t do anything bad to anyone.

³²Instead, be good to each other, and try to understand the way others feel. If somebody does wrong to you, don’t do payback to them but let it go. Be good to each other, just like God is good to you. He didn’t do payback to you. You belong to Jesus Christ now, so he didn’t punish you for those bad things you did.