"What I once thought was valuable is worthless."

But Christ has shown me that what I once thought was valuable is worthless.  Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  I have given up everything else and count it all as garbage.  All I want is Christ and to know that I belong to him.  I could not make myself acceptable to God by obeying the Law of Moses.  God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ.  All I want is to know Christ and the power that raised him to life.  I want to suffer and die as he did, so that somehow I also may be raised to life.

I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect.  But Christ has taken hold of me.  So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize.  My friends, I don't feel that I have already arrived.  But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead.  I run toward the goal, so that I can win the prize of being called to heaven.  This is the prize that God offers because of what Christ Jesus has done.  All of us who are mature should think in this same way.  And if any of you think differently, God will make it clear to you.  But we must keep going in the direction that we are now headed.

                                                                                         Philippians 3:7-16

Contemporary English Version The Holy Bible (New York , NY: American Bible Society 1995)