worthy of the gospel

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents - which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me. ~ Philippians 1:27-30

It may very well be that the above words are the clearest and most true that you will read on this post, because my mind has not been working well the past few days and even expressing myself through writing has become difficult. So feel free to explain what i neglect to, or address something that doesn't sound quite right.
That being said, this passage is a really cool passage. We often hear about conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, but i think we tend to brush over it as one of those "be good now, children" admonishments. What does it really mean? Well, i think it has at least two meanings. The first is that the gospel, if we have the correct view of it, should be the most important concept on our mind. We should be valuing it more than most people value money or popularity. The gospel was created through the death of GOD! He deemed it THAT important! We should, as well. Do we act like we're worthy of possessing it? It's a precious gift, and alot of times, i know i don't act like i have it, much less that i'm worthy of possessing it. I don't think i explained that very well, but the Holy Spirit can explain it to you much better than i ever could anyway.
The second implication of "conducting ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ" is that the gospel should have taken effect in our lives. Because of it, we can live completely free from guilt, shame, slavery to sin, fear, and the list goes on. We can have absolute confidence through Christ! But do our lives days look like that? I know i fail every day, letting fear and my old nature's desire to sin have control in my heart. This should not be so. I have the gospel of Christ. I have purity, boldness, love, longsuffering, and so much more through Christ because i have received His gospel. You have it too. take advantage of that.
The next part of the passage says "so that whether I come and see you, or remain absent, I will hear of you,  that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents - which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God." I can list on one hand the believers i know that are renowned for their steadfastness, zeal for the gospel, and fearlessness of opposition. On ONE hand! Out of how many believers that i know??? and i am not one of those that i could list, just by the way. Our unity in trust in Christ and love for Him should be so vibrant that even those who are nowhere near us are being told of us! God has given us all the same ability to stand out like that in Him. We can't argue that some believers just have stronger personalities or are blessed with more gifts or whatever, because that has nothing to do with it. It is Christ that gives us that power, but we have to allow Him to have His way in us.  
The final point of the passage that i want to address is "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake". Paul makes a point of saying that it has been granted, not just to believe in Him, but to suffer. I think alot of the time, we stop with the idea that we have been granted belief in Him, because that is the obvious gift and it's happy and gives us warm, fuzzy feelings and it's easy because we already believe in Him. But we don't think about the fact that we've been granted to suffer for His sake. Granted. That's a gift too. But if we're even mature enough to expect suffering for His sake, we don't act like it's a gift. We ask for God to make it stop and make it easy for us.  I'm not saying that it's unreasonable for you to not want to suffer for Him, because as a human being, it's totally natural. But as those striving to be more like Christ and bring Him more glory, i do think it is something that we should begin to accept as a gift.