In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.  I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

Ephesians 3:12, 13

In him.  Paul always points the basis of our walk with God – first, we live in Him.  Our lives are hidden in Jesus Christ, as it were.  The grace of God accomplishes that in us.

Through faith in him.  That certainly means believing with all our hearts the wonderful truth that through the finished work of Christ, He can live in us if we invite him to do so.  Without that all is doom.  With faith in him, we are blessed, blessed, beyond telling.  Because of that faith, we approach God with freedom and confidence.  Is that not full grace?  Freedom of access, and confident that we have a wide door of acceptance, because Jesus is with us.

As his own personal word of witness to what he is explaining, Paul reminds his readers that he suffered at the hands of the strict Jews while in Ephesus.  Those had been his colleagues in persecuting the followers of Jesus.  Imagine their chagrin when Paul was found by the Lord and converted!

As Paul looks back on it all, in the past and the present, he is reminded that his own personal sufferings brings glory to the fellowship of believers, Jew and Greeks.