You ask: other than Christ, life, eternity and heaven, what is my greatest gain as a Christian believer?

What an oxymoron this is! The greatest gain is none other than in Christ and of Christ and by Christ and for Christ. (Bach now sees an example of three consecutive conjunctive words "and"). Save for this greatest gain and everything implied therein, what other lesser but still great gains do I possess?

Wow! Let's take a step back and ponder on the validity of the question, or at least the framing thereof. The question may be better rephrased as this:

What fleeting and paltry losses do I entail for the greatest gain that I count in?

Well, that is far better asked. First of all, I would have sustained a continually wasteful loss of an otherwise unnecessarily prolonged, sinnful life, had I not placed my trust in my Savior and Lord early in my life. In other words, I would have mortgaged my life in advance from hell and outspent it before I could rein in the depreciation of my life lease's principal.

Second, I would have sorrowfully missed a God-conscious present-day life of faith, hope and love that comes with my willing and willful submission to God. In other words, a joyful foretast of the heavenly experience would have eluded the grip of my yearning heart.

Third, I would have naturally grown a headful of graying hairs and aging wrinkles that so vividly portrays the weary and the heavy-laden. The youthful look is coolly savory for those young in hearts. I gratefully line myself up in this league infrequently registered with.

Fourth, I would have been detestably stingy toward others, and at the same time excessively frugal toward myself, had I not firmly subscribed to the belief that it simply delights the heart of our life-giver to live out a generous and altruistic life. I am one lucky son of God that can oftentimes serve as the conduit from God's abundant spring of blessing to people's palpable pool of want.

Fifth, it might well have been that my life would have taken a detour well on my way to attain to the enviable, and indeed once covetted for, position of a tenured professorship of outstanding acclaim, had I abandoned the call of God for me to become his evangelist. But I would not hesitate to respond to His call again, if I have to choose a second time. I am content with my lot that God has providentially assigned me to.

How wonderfully and eloquently said by Apostle Paul it is:

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, 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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:7-14)