“I count not myself to have,” what? … “apprehended.” He hasn’t gotten it yet. Wasn’t that nice of him? The word there “to ap­ prehend” is “to grasp eagerly.” That is in verse thirteen … “to grasp eagerly.” Here is another picture of his humility. We have found two or three places where Paul was willing to own up to his failure or his lack. How brave he was when he went up to Bithynia and got turned out by the Holy Ghost, Who let him know that he was out of divine order and he better go back. That was rather humiliating, but he didn’t care; he told us about it. He said, “You know after I got up there the Holy Ghost got after me and justfor­ bade me to get in there at all. He wouldn’t let me.” Well, that is rather humiliating. None of us would do that. No, we wouldn’t, but Paul would. Paul tells us why he has the thorn in the flesh. He says, “Because in my inner make-up there is a possibility of this disastrous thing happening, and I don’t want it to happen and God doesn’t either. God told me the only way to fix that was to have this stake driven through my whole nature and that will pin me down where I belong; then I can get along.” But nobody would want to tell it! That is not the way we are made. We always tell the beautiful things the Lord has done; that’s good too, but we wouldn’t want to tell all the things He does to us; that wouldn’t be very good. It might discourage somebody! So we say, ‘‘The Lord is wonderful, let’s all go to heaven; He is so beautiful." Well, somebody says, “Is that the way?” “Yes.” Then they say, “You told me a story. You told me quite a while back, and now I find that isn’t the way it is. Why did you tell me that?” I don’t want somebody to do that to me. No, no. The Scripture says, “It is a holy warfare.” Paul says, “endure hardness as a good soldier …” (2 Tim. 2:3). Well, that is very different from what we generally have. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a meeting with an altar call: “All those who want to endure hardness as a good soldier, come forward!” Wouldn’t that be something! But that is scriptural, and it is what Paul says. Well then, why not face these things? I am afraid I am quite a realist in these things after all. That’s the reality; that’s the reality; that’s the reality. Now he says, “I have not yet (111 confess it to you), I haven’t yet apprehended that for which I have been apprehended and I know it. But there is an alternative even to that. I still press on; I am not going to let it discourage me, or overwhelm me. I have not apprehended; that is, laid hold of the thing for which I was ap­ prehended.” Now listen! “I have not yet apprehended that for which I was apprehended.” How many see something appre­ hending Paul, or don’t you get it? All right, that’s double: He says, “I was laid hold of by God, by the Spirit.” Why? ‘‘To apprehend that. Christ is not going to apprehend it for me, but He will hold me and reach me out and He will say, ‘You grasp it. I’ll hold you; now get it.’ " And Paul continues, “I have been laid hold of, I have been apprehended, I have been taken hold of, and I am held out here, but I haven’t yet obtained or gotten a hold of the thing for which I was apprehended.’’ Why did God apprehend him? To get that. But Paul can’t get it alone, and the Lord doesn’t get it for him; the Lord doesn’t ap­ prehend it. But Paul says, “If God can get hold of me, which He has, and steadies me toward that thing, I can have it. I have not realized it; it’s before me; it’s by my grasp; I can get it. I haven’t yet fully laid hold of - grasped earnestly­ the thing that God has apprehended me for. He has laid hold of me for it, and I am conscious that He has laid hold of me, and I want to get it.’’ That is one more thing Paul is going to do in order to have his vi­ sion realized. A Retreatant injects, “Paul has had a long life of experience before this.” Yes, he has lived quite a little while before he writ’es all this, because in his first touches with God, they were periods of ad­ justment. Paul had come out of a legalistic set-up of the Jews with law and works. He had to have all that taken down for the conception of grace to penetrate into his heart and mind. It was like a complete revolution in him. Do you remember what a dif­ ficult time God had with Peter and the rest of the disciples in tearing down all that legalistic set-up, until they could say, “It is of grace?” “But our ancestors have always said it is works!” He says, “It isn’t works, it’s faith; the work is finished in Christ; it’s faith!” Now, the first teachings of Paul, the first illuminations, were a period of tearing all that down. I call it adjustment to the vision of faith and to the meaning of salvation by grace; that is Christ, of course, initially speaking. But look at the things we found in Christ after we embraced Him! When we got salvation and Jesus came into our lives, we were conscious of Him; we could pray and God heard us; we felt Him near us; and we had an experience, but how little any of us dreamed of what was in the thing! Why, we hadn’t the slightest idea. But that was all held out there. There it was! And God says, “That’s yours, 111 get a hold of you, and reach you out, and now you take it. 111 hold you. Now don’t be afraid; 111 hold you out there; take your portion, take it.” And here are all these things Paul is going to have, but there had to be an intelligent, spiritual cooperation with God. Paul couldn’t sit down and say, “Give it to me, Lord.” The Lord says, “I will, BUT this is conditional again. I can’t go over there and pick it up and put it in your lap, but it’s for you. You do your reaching; you do that part, and 111 hold you.” So Paul says, “There is something over there in God and 111 never get it, only that way; that’s one thing I am going to do.” The next thing Paul says he must do is in verse 13: