But whatever were gains to us we now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, we consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord, for whose sake we want to lose all things. we consider them garbage, that we may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at our goal, but we press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us.

Brothers and sisters, we do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus.