My Determined Purpose in Life

Whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as (one combined) loss for Christ's sake.

Furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege - the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme advantage - of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, of perceiving and recognising and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ, the Anointed One.

And that I may [actually] be found and known as in Him, not having any (self-achieved) righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law's demands - ritualistic uprightness and [supposed] right standing with God thus acquired - but possessing that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ, the Anointed One, the [truly] right standing with God, which comes from God by (saving) faith.

[For my determined purpose is] 

1. that I may know Him - that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognising and understanding [the wonders of His Person] more strongly and more clearly.
    
2. And that I may in the same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers];
    
3. and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even]to His death,
   
   
4. [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body.]

Not that I have now attained [this ideal] or am already made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus, the Messiah, has laid hold of me and made me His own.

I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do - it is my one aspiration: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ is calling us upward.

So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions, and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also.

- The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians 3: 7 - 15

[Source: The Amplified New Testament]