Pressing on Toward the Goal

Pressing on Toward the Goal

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take holdof that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.13Brothers, I 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,14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.16Only let us live up to what we have already attained.17Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.18For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.