Paul was keenly aware of the gift of grace he had received on the road to Damascus…more so than a lot of the Believers he was writing to here. His life did a 360 on that dusty road as the Lord confronted him…and he knew without that divine intervention he would of been doomed. So Paul is exhorting his readers to not drag their gift of grace through the mud by using it as some kind of trophy with conceited pride, but to consider carefully and seriously what they would be like without the grace of God.