1 I want you to know that I work very hard for you Christians at Colossae, and also for the Christians at that other town near you called Laodicea. And I work hard for lots of other Christians that have never met me. 2 I’m working like this to help you be strong, so that all of you will be joined together by loving each other. You see, I want you to know and properly understand God’s plan to use Jesus Christ to save people. Then you will be really sure about it, and that will make you really happy. 3 You see, Jesus knows everything, and he understands everything. He is the only one that can get us to think properly, so that we understand what is true. That is really good for us. 4 I’m telling you these things so that you will not listen to people that teach lies. They might talk in a way that sounds good, but they are liars.

5 You know, I’m not there with you right now, that is, my body is not there. But I think about you a lot. And I’m happy about you. You all work together as a group, and you all keep on trusting Jesus Christ properly.

6 You believe in Jesus Christ now, and you let him be your boss. That’s good. Keep living his way. 7 Keep on believing that message about Jesus Christ, and keep on getting to know him better all the time. Keep on strongly believing the things that we taught you. And always thank God very much for everything.

8 Some people might try to make you believe some ideas about God that are wrong. Those ideas didn’t come from Jesus Christ, but they came from bad spirits, and from the people of this world. People taught those ideas to their kids, and to their grand-kids. But those ideas are not true. They might sound good, but they are tricky lies. Be careful. Don’t believe them.

9 Listen. God himself lives in Jesus Christ. Jesus has a body and God lives in that body, so that Jesus is properly God. 10 And you are joined to Jesus Christ, so God is in you too. He gives you everything that you need to live the right way. And Jesus is the winner over all the other spirit bosses.

11 You know that the Jewish people do a young man operation on their baby boys. Well, when you joined on to Jesus, God did something like that to you. He didn’t cut away a part of your body, but it was like he did an operation on your spirit. He cut away a bad part from your spirit. That was the bad part that made you want to do bad things. 12 You know, after you became a Christian, the church leaders baptised you. You went into the water, then you came up out of it. In that ceremony, it’s like you did what Jesus did. He died, and it’s like that bad part of your spirit died. And God made him alive again, and he came up out of the grave. And now you believe that God has strong power, and your spirit is joined to Jesus, so God’s power makes your spirit alive too, just like he made Jesus alive again.* Romans 6:4

13-14 You did bad things before. Your spirits still had that bad part that made you go wrong. It is like your spirits were dead. I will use picture talk to show you what I mean. Whenever you did bad things, it is like somebody wrote it down on paper so they could blame you later. But God let them blame Jesus instead of you, and then God chucked that paper away. It is like he nailed that paper to the cross when he let people nail Jesus there. And then God made your spirits alive again, just like he made Jesus alive again. Now he doesn’t blame you for the bad things you did.* Ephesians 2:1-5

15 God did that, and he finished up the power of all the bad spirit mob. He was even stronger than the most powerful spirit bosses. He finished up their power when Jesus died on the cross. He shamed them, and he showed everyone that he is the winner over all those bad spirits.

16 You know, some people make up laws, and they reckon that if you want to make God happy, you have to follow those laws. But remember what I just said. God is already happy with you. So don’t listen to anyone that says you are wrong if you don’t follow their laws. Don’t take any notice of them. They might have laws about things you can’t eat or drink. Or they might have laws about some ceremonies on special days, or laws about the time of a new moon, or laws about a special day for rest.

17 God gave the Jewish people laws about those things, but they are not for us now. It is like this, and I’m using picture talk again now. Sometimes you see a shadow moving along, and you know that somebody is coming. Well, God gave them those laws, but those laws are just like a shadow. They are not the real person. The real person is Jesus Christ. And now he has come to us, so we don’t need to look at that shadow any more. That is, we don’t need to follow those laws any more.

18 There are some people that tell lies and say, “God has shown us special things.” Those people think up their own ideas, and that makes them feel smart. But they tell you that they are not smart, and then they tell you to show respect to God’s angel messengers, as if those angels are God. But they are trying to trick you. Don’t take any notice of those people, and don’t believe those lies. 19 They are trying to have a church without Jesus.

You see, God set the church up like this. Jesus is the head, and his people are his body. Jesus holds his people together just like a body has joints and ligament strings that hold it together. And God makes the church grow, just like he makes bodies grow.* Ephesians 4:16

20 Remember that you are joined to Jesus Christ. It is like you died with him when he died. You don’t belong to this world any more, so you don’t have to follow the laws that the people of this world make up about God. 21 They have laws like, “Don’t use that thing,” and, “Don’t eat that,” and, “Don’t touch that thing.” 22 Those laws just come from people, not from God, so you don’t have to take any notice of them. Those laws are just about things that wear out when people use them.

23 Those laws might sound like they are good, but they are useless. They get people to do things that hurt their bodies, and then they think they are good, and they think it makes God happy. But even when people try to follow those laws, they still can’t stop themselves from going wrong. Their bodies still make them want to do bad things, and then they do those bad things. So those laws are useless.