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When I was asked to share my Exchanged Life experience during the morning worship service at my church, my first thought was I couldn’t do it. I am shy. I’m not a public speaker.

However, I’ve learned that when Christ died, my old person died with him. When he was buried, I was buried with him. When he rose again, I also rose to a new life. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creature. Old is gone and all is new. I’m doing my best to stay out of God’s way allowing him to make me into a new creature. Not simply a fix-up of the old me. It is a bit scary and uncomfortable at times.

My family

If you want a few personal details of who I am in the natural world, I come from a large, dysfunctional family. When my father married my mother he had been married once before and my mom had been married three times before. To the marriage, she brought three kids. My two older brothers and a sister. I was in my forties before I knew my dad also had two daughters from his first marriage. He never spoke of them, at least to me. We lived in Yakima, Wa, mostly. They had 7 more children. There were ten of us – my mom’s children spread over twenty years. For many years there were usually 7 of us at home.

My father had serious anger issues and was probably, what the secular experts would label as (bi-polar). And the grass was always greener somewhere else. So his jobs never lasted long and we moved frequently when until I was 8, but always ended back in Yakima.  My mom was simply an immature person. So we grew up seeing stress produce anger. It wasn’t frequent, but it could be painful.

My dad had difficulty staying with any job for more than a year, maybe. Then tension would begin to build and whoever crossed him would suffer the outburst of his rage. Once he started whipping he couldn’t stop until the rage was spent. Didn’t happen much, but woe to the one he unleashed in on.

I saw too much anger growing up. What I didn’t know was that anger was being woven into the fabric of my character only to show itself years later when I had children.

First, it was my mom’s second son. I wasn’t old enough to know or I don’t remember what he did to clash with my dad. He left to live with his dad when he found out my dad was not his, at about 10 years old.

After he left and my next the youngest brother got older, he and my dad clashed. He would do things knowing it would set him off.

Did it happen to me? Yes, I was the only girl that suffered from his rage. I set him off once when I was 7 and learned to never again do anything that would get him angry. My older sister, who is 8 years older than me, could sense when he was on the downward side and learned to be obedient or stay out of the way. I grew up feeling the need to perform for affirmation. Tense.

My oldest brother ran away when I was 6. He was 16. My older sister ironed his jeans for him and helped him pack. When he showed up in Tulsa at our aunt’s house my aunt called my mom. Mom said he could stay.

I knew dad was a Christian, but there were those times when he definitely was not acting like a Christian. Looking back, I can see he was in the same predicament as I found myself. He didn’t know how to get free from his sinful nature. I knew he loved God and loved God’s word. He was in it daily. But he never found victory over his sinful nature.

New Birth

I was born again at 9 years of age. I knew I was born again and that I was forever different. I was ok with that. I didn’t feel the need to fit in. As I progressed through school I didn’t participate in dances, going to shows, because I was told that Christians didn’t do those things. I was ok with that. I knew I was different.

I remember that morning service at church camp when I went forward to invite Jesus into my heart. Afterward, I got up and went outside to join my friends and knew that life was now different, it would never again be the same.

1. It was like something inside of me was now awake.
2. Like seeing in black and white then seeing in color.
3. Something had been missing, but I didn’t know it was missing until I was born again.
4. Then I knew.

• He saved me.
• Forgave my sins.
• Took me out of the world.
• I was no longer part of the world.

What I didn’t know was I was no longer my own. I was serious about being a Christian. And many times I was at the altar surrendering my life to him.

Typical new birth

You know, we ask Jesus into our heart, but we still are in control of our lives. He is welcome as our savior, but for the most part, we don’t even know about:                

1. dying with him,
2. being buried with him
3. being resurrected to a new life lived for and unto him.

We just carry on with our life, saved and going to heaven.

After high school, I went to Trinity Bible Institute in North Dakota where my love for the word was sparked. We had a teacher that was an incredible Bible teacher. I remember taking a class called Numbers and Deuteronomy from him. He made those books come alive. I learned so much from him. My walk with the Lord also deepened in that spiritually rich environment.

It was there that I met Bob and married in 1973. We moved out to Washington in 1976 where Bob finished his BA at Northwest College.

Years of wandering

We kind of lost our way for a few years and didn’t go to church. We, too, moved around a lot. I have no problem packing up and moving. Places and houses don’t mean much to me.

We wandered away from God. Our attention lured away from him. Our eyes looked at what Satan was tempting us with – discouragement. We can get sidetracked so easy. But my heart was always his. I never turned away from. I never renounced him. I just got sidetracked and wandered away and got lost. But crying out to him, he heard my prayer of repentance.

Baby son

We had our older son when we had been married 10 years. We lived for a few years in a rural area near North Bend, Washington. It was a spiritually dark place. I felt so alone there and under a dark cloud. It didn’t help that 300 days a year were cloudy.

Terrible years

Life seemed to go ok until one day when our son was a toddler and did something I didn’t like, I got angry for no real reason. Something in me said that was what I was supposed to do. And so 1986 began what I call my terrible years of getting angry every few months, hating myself for it and trying desperately not to repeat that behavior.

I determined to try harder.

1. If I could just pray enough.
2. Read the Bible enough.
3. Surrender my life again and again.

Did you know –

Total surrender means giving God permission to do whatever it takes to transform us into the image of his dear son. And to that end, he begins the process of bringing us to the place where we give up. 

I didn’t know that at that time. We began attending church again and had some good services.

Times of struggle

I just couldn’t understand why I was not getting the victory. Oh, there were short-lived victories, but there wasn’t a fundamental change in my inner core.

Times of spiritual renewal would carry me for awhile, but not long term.  I kept telling the Lord that I needed him. I acknowledged I was poor in spirit. But I knew nothing about how to be fundamentally changed, free.

I read Romans 6 and tried really hard to reckon myself dead. But to no avail. I would read 2 Corinthians 5:17 and amen any preaching about that, but was it real in my life or just nice sounding words? Just words.

I would determine each day to live so I had no regrets. I would try to arrange each day so there would be minimum stress and so little chance of anger. I loved my son and felt sorry for him having to have me as his mother.

After losing my temper it would take about 2 weeks to climb out of the hole of despair before I felt like living again.

As time went by I hated myself more and more. If I could have ended my life without hurting him, I probably would have seriously considered it. Nobody likes to hear of a child getting spanked more than necessary.

During this time I remember reading the book called “Handbook to Happiness.” About that time, I also read Watchman Nee’s book – “The Normal Christian Life.”

Frustration

But none of it really made a difference, except to cause more frustration as I tried and tried to reckon myself dead.

But I wasn’t dead. I couldn’t see how to make it work. I had a serious problem deep in my subconsciousness that took over in times of stress, and oh, how I wanted to be free from it.

In normal times I was different.

But oh, the times I was crazy.

We moved to Yakima and had our second son. There we were asked to pastor a church we had been attending for about a year. That brought a lot more responsibilities and so more stress.

It finally took my husband to tell me to not lay a hand on the kids in anger ever again. Finally, somebody stopped me. I felt some relief. Did I still get angry? Yes, but I took it out on things. I put holes in walls or broke things, slammed doors, etc.

When moved to Nebraska in 1996 I made a determination to keep my life as simple as possible in order to reduce stress. It helped, but I still couldn’t seem to do life very well.

It seemed like the promises in the Bible were just a lot of nice sounding words.

    “He always causes us to triumph”. Really?

The fruit of the Spirit was as you know: love, joy, kindness, etc. That certainly did not describe my Christian walk. I couldn’t produce the fruit no matter how hard I tried.

Cornered to Christ

I began to sink into depression. There was no hope for me. Life was awful and I was just making a mess for my family. I felt like I had no options.

I was being cornered by Christ. Cornered to the cross.

God had taken my surrender seriously, no matter how I despaired. He did not make me stronger. His goal was to make we weaker and weaker until I had nothing left.

I couldn’t seem to do anything right. What do you do? You can’t just quit. Who will cook, do laundry, teach the kids? So I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, so to speak and got through each day.

I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. After all, I had accepted Jesus as my savior and invited him into my heart, so why was it so hard to get free of some sins, what Paul calls our “besetting sin.”

Finally one day (2001-2002)??? something happened that took away my last hope. I had nowhere to go. I found myself in a corner. I sunk to the bottom and gave up.

My death

I knelt by the bed and told God that I was done trying to be a Christian. I needed a savior. I knew he had saved me from my sins, but that was not enough. I needed serious help. I needed saving from myself.

I quit trying to be a Christian. I figured that I was going to hell, but I had no more strength to try once more. I was done. I gave up on myself. I gave up all rights to anything.  My life looked like a black hole. No idea what lay ahead.

I committed suicide without taking my physical life.

I gave up trying and trying to be a good Christian.

It seemed like I went through a black hole. A black hole of death. I had no idea what life would be like after that.

Dr. Stephen Olford http://www.gracenotebook.com/pub/2,id,343,unQ,P.html calls it the “extinguished” life. Then the “relinquished” life. Then the “distinguished” life. Making us partakers of divine nature.

War is over

It took a load off me. The conflict in me was over. The war was over.

What was my life like after that? Quiet. There was no more inner turmoil. No more stress. No more conflict. That person inside was dead. Quiet. All was quiet. Still.

Years later I read where Oswald Chambers calls it our white funeral in his January 15 reading. There comes a time when we all must make a decision about sin. About our flesh. About knowing we died with Christ. About giving up our life.

At the same time, a burden that literally killed me was gone. I had gone through the cross to the other side. Through what I thought was a black hole to a new life, an incredible new life. One that is not dependent on circumstances. It doesn’t matter if the world is falling apart, if I am sick, if the church is cold and lifeless, or if there is a swelling revival. It does not depend on anything.

One day I noticed that nothing seemed to make me angry anymore. Nothing made me frustrated or stressed. Was life suddenly wonderful? No. It was just life. But it was like I was immune to daily stress. I later learned that I was dead. Dead people have no feelings.

Little did I know that God had patiently waited many years for me to quit trying so He could work in me. Although I was out of hope in myself, I found that the life and power of God were still there. I had abandoned myself, but God had not abandoned me. I belonged to God whether I tried or didn’t try. Now His life and power were growing unhindered in me filling up the empty spaces left from my dead efforts.

God had not abandoned me

This was a surprise! I was convinced that when I gave up that He had abandoned me, given up on me. I was mistaken. I thought my trying was essential to being a Christian. Little did I realize that spiritual growth could be achieved only with spiritual power and not with my human ability. By his life in me.

When contemplating this one day I wondered why I used to get so angry. I couldn’t understand it. It made no sense. That’s how much he had changed me. I was being transformed. Not transforming myself, but being transformed.

Then I began to notice my love for God growing and his love for others.  The fruit of the spirit began to sprout and grow. I was totally amazed. I had given up on myself, but God had not given up on me.

I was a spectator watching God transform me. I wasn’t trying to change myself. I was being changed. I didn’t renew my mind by my own efforts. But as I began to live in his word, my mind was being transformed. It was God working in me to will and to do just like Paul says in Philippians 2:13.

Apostle Paul said, “I live; yet not I; I labored yet not I.” Galatians 2:20, 1 Corinthians 15:10

Not me

He could not take credit for any of his spiritual life for it was not him living it, but Christ. That is what I found out quite by accident. I did not know that is what happened, but it is what over time became evident in my life. Whatever spiritual change or growth that occurred was done apart from me. I was and still am a spectator. He is doing it. I dare not attempt any change.

My sole responsibility and response are to yield myself to him. Continually, actively yielding myself to him. That is all I can do. I can take no credit for anything.

It is me and him. My life is hidden with Christ in God. Rock of ages cleft for me let me hide in thee. I stay hidden. I am covered with his hand. I am in Christ and he is in me. I am empowered by him, not by my abilities to be spiritual, by my abilities to be a mom, employee, sister, piano player, etc. I am dead. In a coffin. Dead people have no rights. Nothing bothers them. They have gone to another place.

Blogging and training

I began to blog the summer of 2012 at the encouragement of my older son. One of my first blog posts was titled “Quit Trying So Hard.” This became my message. I knew there were others trying really hard to be a good Christian and not doing so well but didn’t know what to do about it.

A couple of years ago I remembered reading the book Handbook to Happiness by Charles Solomon. I ordered a copy and reread it. My thought was “these people know what I am talking about” and now I know what has been happening to me. So I contacted them.

I spent the next year reading all their required reading for exchanged life counselor and so began my process towards certification.  Summer, 2016, I went to their headquarters in Tennessee for a four-day intensive training conference. It was so great to be with other people who had a heart for the same thing.

It is not doing to be, but being resulting in doing. 

• If you were born Chinese you would be Chinese without trying. I can try all I want to be Chinese, but I can’t.
• All of our self-efforts even working for God, fasting, hours of praying, studying the Bible, missionary work, will not make me a Christian or for that matter, make me more acceptable to God.
• We are, therefore, we do.

I am still working towards certification. In the meantime, I want to share this good news, the good news of what Hudson Taylor called the Exchanged Life, or what Watchman Nee called the Normal Christian Life – not the average, but what God would call the normal Christian life.  

There is more to life, to our new life.

New birth, a realization that in Christ we died. Good news for those struggling with mental health issues, addictions, and emotional issues. When we realize what took place on that cross – that we were there with him, we died with him. When he was buried, we were buried with him. When he rose, we rose with him to a new life. The old is gone, all is new.

Let’s consider Romans 6:1-11 as the foundation of this life.

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (NKJV)

It’s not just words.

We haven’t just had our sins forgiven. We have had our sinful nature dealt with. Killed. It no longer has a control over us. I no longer have to give in to the temptation to get angry. A drug addict no longer has to give in to the destructive desire to use drugs.

This isn’t only for those struggling with obvious addictions or problems. It is for every believer. There was no distinction. We all died with Christ. We didn’t have a choice.

• But we do have a choice whether to believe it or not.
• We have a choice whether to reckon it to our account or not.
• If we don’t apply this truth to our lives, we will have a weak Christian walk troubled by besetting sins.

If we choose to go that route, we not only cheat ourselves out of a wonderful walk with the Lord, but we will also present a distorted picture of the gospel.

I know from my family the distortion. They claimed to be Christians, and I believe they were born again. However, they didn’t know that they were in Christ when he died. They didn’t know that they could be completely new creatures. So they were plagued by besetting sins. Most of my family rebelled against the God that was presented in our home and want nothing to do with him.

I learned He saved me from having to be who I was raised to be. I am free. I don’t have the right to keep acting like I was raised. Just because I was raised with anger, does not give me the right as a believer to keep up the same behavior. When we died with Christ, we gave up our rights.

“Sell all that you have…” (Luke 18:22). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God.” Oswald Chambers, August 18

Our choice

This exchanged life isn’t a choice really. It is a fact. When we choose to take out of the gift box of salvation only forgiveness and eternal life in heaven, we live a distorted, troubled Christian life. We act like we have a choice in this death – I don’t think we do.

Yes, this life beyond death is more awesome than you can imagine. It is quite surprising! Joy, peace, everything we need. We don’t have to have stress or troubles with people because he lives for us. He is not stressed. He is not depressed. He is not self-centered. He has no stress buttons for others to push.

It is no longer me driving someone to the hospital who had attempted suicide. It is no longer myself dealing with a son on drugs. It is no longer me doing a monotonous task. It is me, but it is not me. Understand?

I know what it is like to hesitate to surrender and to accept death. But, the surprise is on the other side. Like a black hole that everyone wonders what is on the other side. Even our natural death is a bit scary because we haven’t gone there before.

This is where freedom begins. This is where joy begins.This is where we find the promises of the Bible are true. They are real. Everyday real. He really does mean it when he says that he wants our joy to be full. That we would have his joy. Even Monday morning.

Jesus said if you want to be my disciple –

1. Deny yourself, not deny yourself certain things, but deny you exist
2. Take up your cross
3. Follow me

It seems negative, but oh that number three – follow me. It opens up a whole new life.

He always leads us in triumph (2 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV) even when all around seems awful. Take this verse and meditate on it. For me to live is Christ. It is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me. (Galatians 2:20).  If we step aside and allow him to live through us, he will cause us to be more than conquerors.

I am nothing. If I attempt to live my own life it will once again be a disaster. Success depends totally on staying dead. It is all of him. It is his life. I cannot do anything apart from him. I have not arrived. But I do press on clinging to him and ignoring me.

I don’t know why he reached across the universe, around the world to touch my life.

Transformation

That change began a transformation. He is doing it. I am doing nothing but actively yielding to him. Choosing each day to deny myself, take up my cross and follow him. I cannot follow him if I have my own agenda or hang on to my rights, etc.

I owe him my life. How can I not? It is all of him.

I have been saved from the penalty of sin and saved from the power of sin. I am saved moment by moment from the power of sin and myself.

Learning to live out of our new person. It takes time. There will probably be down times and mistakes, but we learn to live out our salvation. I have not been perfect. Life hasn’t been easy. But my source of life is different.

Joy comes from knowing that it was all of him. He saved me. He healed me. (Jeremiah 17:14). All by himself. All because he wanted to. I didn’t know what to do but finally, quit. He was working in me all along.

“No one else could take the sin and darkness from me.” (No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus by Charles Weigle)

“No one else can heal all our soul’s diseases.” (No Not One by Johnson Oatman)

I had no one guiding me, counseling me, helping me to understand what was wrong with me, what was happening to me. God did it all by himself. I don’t know why he bothered, why he cared.

Complete surrender

If you completely surrender your life to God, you give him permission to bring you to the end of yourself so you will find the incredible life of depending totally on him. When you let go of all you are clinging to, what you think you need, what you cannot do without, he will bring you to a new life.

He was gently, but firmly stripping away everything I depended on, everything I thought I needed until I was a trembling, naked soul standing before him.

Can you understand that? His plan is to create a new life in you. All because he wants to. What joy!!!

He will bring each his children to that place in his own time and in his own way. If you surrender to him and follow him all the way to your calvary, he can bring you on through the resurrection to a new life in him.

Trust me, from experience, what might look awful, scary, is really just the doorway to an incredible life full of purpose, his love, acceptance, and joy. God’s goal is to transform us into the image of his son. If you haven’t surrendered to him, I pray you will consider taking that first step. Then trust him for the outcome.

Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25 NKJV) It looks like a losing situation. In reality, it is winning.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Two negatives – deny your life, take up the instrument of death to remind you that you died with Christ.

And follow me. Wow! Two negatives, yes. But, the final step. “And follow me.” That final step begins a journey that is unknown to the natural person. It is the abundant life Jesus promised to his followers.