Exchanged Lives - The One Year At His Feet Devotional
Exchanged Lives
Read: John 11:21-26
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
John 11:25
“Because of the Resurrection, everything changes.”
—Max Lucado
IN WORD The death of Jesus is for the believer everything we need for the forgiveness of our sins. In a sense, we and all of our sin died with Jesus on the cross. His death is the penalty of our rebellion and the price of our pardon. The wrath of God is satisfied in the Cross, and we are free from that awful, awful burden.
But the story of the Christian life does not end with forgiveness. If we and all of our sin died with Jesus on the cross, who then lives? We cannot say on the one hand that we died with Him and on the other hand that we are still alive in our natural selves. We must choose—our old life or its death. And if we choose its death, then how do we live on?
Paul gives us the glorious answer: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The life that we live by faith is an exchanged life—everything that we were went with Jesus on the cross; everything that He is was raised from the tomb and is given to us. We gave up everything in our old nature, in all of our lostness, to have that substitute on the cross. In return, we gained the life of the everlasting Son of the living God, with all of His privileges and power. What an exchange!
IN DEED The sad truth about this exchange—and it is the only sad thing about it—is that we are forgetful creatures. Having accepted the Cross as our payment for sin, we forget to live in the Resurrection that follows. Our old natures want to ignore their death certificate. Their demise is a legal fact, not a biological reality (yet). They remind us of what we were before the Cross. And we listen.
Yet Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. He offers to fill us with His glorified self. The substitution of the Cross is not just in death, but in resurrection. We may now live in the power that raised Him. But only if we live by faith. Are you living that life? Or better yet, is He living that life in you? Believe it. Believe in the Resurrection and the Life. And be reminded daily: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
