Pauline-Jesus Theology

I don't care if this breaks any category restrictions.  I still think it's all true.  Anyway, here it is:

If Paul ever said anything that properly describes or prescribes what the Christian Life is supposed to be like, then that is what Jesus must have lived like, because Jesus of Nazareth is the only human being who has ever successfully lived that kind of a life.

Whatever he did there, he did to the Glory of God.  His was the most excellent way.  He found inside his members the laws of sin and death, but praise be to God, there was no condemnation within him!  His mind was set on the spirit (he was a beggar for God's spirit, after all) and he found life and peace.  His spirit did not war against his flesh, but God's Spirit testified with his spirit that GOD was his father!  And if he was a child, he was also an heir.

And so, from some age going forward, Jesus - IN Nazareth - was never alone.  If he suffered, he suffered with God.  If he gloried, then he gloried with God.  At some point he heard all creation groaning for redemption, and the Spirit groaned with it.  He saw God's people in Nazareth, all around him.  But he did not see God's direct dominion over each of their lives.  Yet, Jesus hoped for what he did not yet see.  He lived at peace with all people.  He grew in favor with both God and man.  Yet he made of himself nothing.  But he yearned for the Kingdom of God.

That's a small sampling of what my theology tells me - via Paul - that Jesus' life here simply must have been like.  HE actually lived by the first two commandments.  HE bore his own burdens as well as the burdens of others.  HE thought always upon that which was lovely, pure, noble, true, excellent and worthy of praise.  And there is so much more we could say.

What did Jesus Christ do, there in Nazareth?  HE STOOD UPON THE EARTH AND HE TOOK ON - AND SHOWED FORTH, WHETHER ANYONE KNEW IT OR NOT - THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD!

Now, then.  Years later, Paul caught onto all that, about Jesus, found some people who took Jesus in Spirit into themselves, and then Paul told them (essentially), go and do likewise.

But in Nazareth, for those three decades before he got famous, Jesus the carpenter, the son of the carpenter...

Lived a life that was perfectly pleasing to God.