Ephesians 3:8 - An unlikely journey of infinite proportions

"To me the least of all saints was given this grace, to evangelize to the nations the unfathomable riches of Christ..."

-From the least of all to unfathomable riches, an unlikely journey of infinite proportions... But that’s what He do, this almighty God of wonders, and this was the attitude embraced by the one who penned this letter.  Was he really the least of all the saints, the lowest of all the men women and children on the proverbial Body-of-Christ totem pole?  Hardly, but this is how he really saw himself.  God had taken a murderous persecutor of the saints and had transformed him into a Spirit-empowered producer of saints.  From saint-hater to saint-maker.  And he lived into it.  His life was indeed not his own, and he lived as fully and completely into others-first others-better as he could by the gift of God’s grace.  Obviously God was doing the heavy lifting, but Paul was the instrument, and he was all-in for letting the Lord pour him all out for the would-be believers he would have once seen in prison or worse, or better yet for those who would never even have come to faith in the first place.

-But again, God did Paul an immense undeserved favor, as his God-given responsibility was to announce to the nations the priceless Good News about Jesus.  In fact, what valuation, what price could you even place on the Gospel, or on Jesus Christ, or even on just one of the countless souls for whom He gave up His life?  How much is one soul worth?  How much are you worth?  What indeed does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul (Mt 16.26)?  Your soul, my soul, the soul of even the worst most vile and evil person on earth, is worth more than all the riches in the cosmos.  It is worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for it, and the price God Himself was willing to pay was the life of His only Son.  And THAT, my friends, is a price beyond valuation.  True riches beyond compare.  Incalculable.  Inestimable.  Truly unfathomable.  Worth your life...

-But this is in no way about me.  It’s not about how much I am worth to God, it’s about the incomparable riches of Jesus Christ.  He is better, simply better, better than anything or anyone, and we waste our lives on manure and slummy mudpies when we give our hearts and time and devote ourselves to anything else (Phil 3.8).  It is He, it is He, it is He!  The fairest of ten thousand and billions more beside.  He is the Buried Treasure for which one would sell all that he has, He is the priceless heavenly Pearl for Whom we would do well to develop a magnificent obsession (Mt 13.44-46).  Our mind is filled with Him, and we are preoccupied continually, intrusively and to a troubling extent.  Or ought to be, no?  My soul knows this to be true, but my head and my heart fall so short, so far short of full devotion, so fickle and failing, chasing after so many lesser suitors, so caught up in the fleeting and the temporal and in those things which will never ever fully satisfy.  In this, as in so much else, I myself have a long long way to go...