Exerpt from It's Not About Me-Max Lucado

Behind him, a trail of tracks.

Beneath him, a pounding stallion.

Before him, miles of trail to cover.

Within him, a flint-rock resolve.

Squinty eyed. Firm jawed. Rawboned. Pony Express riders had one assignment-deliver the message safely and quickly. They seized every advantage: the shortest route, the fastest horse, the lightest saddle. Even the lightest lunchbox.

Only the sturdy were hired. Could they handle the horses? The heat? Could they outrun robbers and outlast blizzards? The yound and the orphans were preferred. Those selected were given $125 a month (a good salary in 1860), a Colt revolver, a lightweight rifle, a bright red shirt, blue trousers and eight hours to cover eighty miles, six days a week. ard work and high pay. But the message was worth it.

The apostle Paul would have loved the Pony Express. For he, like the riders, had been entrusted with a message.

"I have a duty to all people," Paul told the Roman church (Rom. 1:14 NCV). He had something for them--a message. He'd been entrusted as a Pony Express courier with a divien message, the gospel. Nothing mattered more to Paul than te gospel. "I am not ashamed of the gospel," he wrote next, "because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16 NIV).

Paul existed to deliver the message. How people remembered him was secondary: (Else why would he introduce himself as a slave? Rom 1:1) How people remembered Christ was primary. Paul's message was not about himself. His message was all about Christ.

(Taken from Max Lucado's study on Romans)