Lord Jesus, I can’t; You never said I could.
Help me to get that through my heart.
The exchanged life is a theme that has been running through my life for almost two years now, and I don’t feel that I have a grasp on it at all. Mentally, yes, I get it. I get that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” I get that I should allow all of Christ to live in all of me. To control me. To live through me. To die, that He might infuse me with His life. Christ-life.
And I know that that doesn’t mean that I become sinless, or that life becomes super-easy and I live in this state of blissful ecstasy. It means that I am surrendered, yielded, ever stepping aside to allow Him to use me, my body, my faculties, as a conduit. That is the meaning, the essence, of Romans 12:1-2.
But how quickly I revert back to living in my flesh! And then weeks — months! — go by and I am exhausted, feeling like I’ve done nothing but spun my wheels, and, having gone nowhere, I run out of fuel and wait by the side of the road, finally willing to let someone help me. And when Jesus comes walking by and offers to not just fill me up and let me go, but to actually be the fuel and do the all the driving, the navigation, and the maintenance, I wonder why I ever left home without Him in the first place.
Lord Jesus, I can’t; You never said I could.
But You can; and always said You would!
The Christian life isn’t about “getting saved” and then using Christ as an accessory, something to dress up with every now and again. I can’t wear Jesus only when He matches my outfit. It’s not about making a decision for Christ and then adding Him to my life when I feel like it. Oswald Chambers said, “The phrase we hear so often, ‘Decide for Christ,’ is an emphasis on something Our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him – a very different thing.”
There it is. The key to the Christian life is daily yielding myself to Him; reminding my flesh daily that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me; saying to Him day by day, moment by moment, “Lord Jesus, I can’t, and You never said I could. But You can…”
Major Ian Thomas wrote, “Unless we are prepared to die, we will never become what we were intended to be. Once the willingness to die is there for us, there are no more issues to face, only instructions to obey.”
What freedom! That means that I no longer have to do for God, only that I yield to Him, go where He tells me, and let Him do through me. Simple availability. That’s it. All of Him in all of me.
Those of you who are attempting to walk this out: how do you activate this truth in your life in a practical way? How do you step aside daily and let Christ live His life through you? What does this look like?
nicely done. you write, too? David really did marry up!
why, thank you! yes, I’m a writer, albeit sporadic lately!
Deep blog, Sarah. Good stuff.
After learning about the exchanged life, I struggled for years to “make this happen on a daily basis.” Finally, one day I realized I was being legalistic about trying to get this exchanged life to work! Can you believe that? It’s insane, but it’s what I was doing by getting up everyday and trying to remember to say, “Okay, today I surrender my life to You, Father,” and feeling guilty if I didn’t do that!
You see, under this method, the exchanged life for me only worked if *I* made it happen. It wasn’t a knowing and believing in something that is already true; it was conditional based on whether I said the right words every day. I say again: That’s crazy.
If the most natural thing for a sinner to do is sin; then, what is the most natural thing for a saint to do? Well, live out of Christ as our resource, right?
So all those times I’m going about my daily life working or reading or whatever, He is my LIFE. In other words, if I’m not deliberately sinning, then Christ is my life–I’m living the exchanged life.
It’s those times when I’m tempted to sin (and we all know there’s a split second before we fall into it) that I need to say, “Okay, Jesus, it’s all Yours.” Now, THOSE are the times when I need to learn how to rely on Him. But even when I don’t; it’s okay because life is a big test (or practice test, if you will). God’s not angry; He’s not frowning at me; He’s not disappointed in me. He says, “Hey, that didn’t work so well did it? Okay, let’s get you up and try it again (and again . . . and again . . . and again)” until finally one day I *might* get it right–or I might not, but it’s the relating during the journey that’s the all-important factor!
I found your article on the exhanged life very good. This week I am preaching on this theme from Luke 14:25-32. One of my children went to Capernwray this past year and we are very familiar with the teaching of Major Ian Thomas and the theme of ‘Christ in you.’