But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Paul is saying goodbye to friends who are crying, and he knows he probably won't see them again. This isn't detachment or bravado. It's a man telling people he loves what he actually cares about, now that the stakes are clear.
What's striking is what he doesn't say. He doesn't say his life has no value. He says he doesn't cling to it as something more precious than the thing he's actually here to do. That's a different claim, and a more honest one — most of us have something we'd protect even at a cost to everything else, we just haven't named it yet.
You don't need to share Paul's mission to notice the question underneath this: is there anything you're living for that matters more to you than staying safe and comfortable? He'd spent years testifying to what he calls "the grace of God" — the idea that people don't have to earn their way into being loved. Whatever you think of that claim, it's worth asking what you'd finish the race for, if you had one.
What would you say matters more to you than your own comfort and safety — and does anything actually live up to that answer yet?
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.