Still meditating on what it means, "the above calling of God in Christ Jesus", I think this centers on 2 ideas,
Being called into glory after finishing the race. I think this speaks for itself.
Being made conformable to His death, here, now. I think this is what leads us to the ideal Christian life, in that Jesus was fully submitted to the Father, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Even the loss of anything and everything.
Being fully obedient, He accomplished all of the Father's desire, leaving nothing undone. Jesus' thoughts, feelings, choices, values, actions, all completely surrendered to the Father, and in return, He lived in the full spiritual life, nothing lacking, spiritual intimacy with His Father, power over unclean spirits,
Isaiah 11:2 KJV
2) And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
Without measure.
God gives to each of us a measure of faith. Lord, increase our faith! Even our tiny faith can move mountains. What was Jesus answer, when they asked for the faith to forgive others? He told the story of the servant doing what he's supposed to do, and not even claiming credit for that, "I'm just an unprofitable servant, I've only done my duty."
Give me more, God, that I can serve You more!
The more we can trust and obey, the more we will live the ideal Christian life. Obedience is the direct result of trust, belief.
Odd example, but here goes. I've learned that keeping figs daily in my diet keeps hair on my head. When I stop eating fits, I start thinning from the top center. When I resume eating figs, it comes back in thicker. After seeing the pattern 3 times, I then tested it, and got the exact same result. So now I believe that if I don't eat figs, I'm going to lose my hair. I want my hair. I've always liked my hair, and I think I present better with my hair. Now, God's will be done. Of course, He told me to eat figs when I was sick some years ago.
But the point is, I believe eating figs maintains an healthy head of hair, so can you guess what I do? I eat figs, every day. My actions conform to my belief, and my desire.
I desire to have a mind fully conformed to Christ. My desire is far greater than just to have hair! I believe that Christian fellowship, a steady diet of the Bible, in reading and study and medition, making my "inputs" like media to be godly, hymns, sermons, Scripture, that these things are effective ways by which we are conformed to Christ. So I fellowship with Christians, consistenly read the Bible, well, you must see where I'm going with this.
We do the things we believe to be effective to obtain the things we actually want. So what do we want, and how do we know how to obtain it? Do we want the right thing? Do we actually know how to apprehend it?
The Love Chapter . . . the Fruit of the Spirit . . . 2 Peter "Add to your faith . . .", these are key passages in defining the ideal Christian life. These are our core character. If what comes out of us is not in harmony with the true and full spirit of these passages, then we are not on the right Way. How honest can we be with ourselves?
A forum like this is quite the environment to bring out what lurks inside us. We have to be willing to examine ourselves, to know without self-deception our real motives. That can be very difficult. And I pray the Holy Spirit give each of us true discernment into ourselves, knowing that deception and denial simply pull us further away from where we truly want to go. I pray in Jesus Name we will have minds like Christ, and that we will so know the Scriptures, and have such a truly open heart that we can apply them to ourselves honestly, fairly, in the safety of God's love and power.
Regardless of distractions, I think this is a topic very worthy of meditation and discussion. The heart of the Christian life, the high calling in Christ.
Much love!