Living The Unexplainable Life!

So what is the Unexplainable life? It is Christ's life exchanged for our self-life so that we have His life living in and through us. It occurs when we come to Christ, but is not always appropriated at that time into our actual experience.

It involves the believer's union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection and his deepest identification in Christ coming from that union. It recognizes that our "old man" of Romans 6:6 was crucified with Christ and an appropriation of our truest identity as a "new man" in Christ made in the image of God.

Christ taught the exchanged life truths, especially in the upper room; the apostles continued them in their writings, particularly Paul in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians; and they have been carried forward by key teachers down through the ages. They are timeless, biblical truths.

In order to understand and appropriate the exchanged life it is crucial to know how God designed us; that is, the biblical model of man. I Thess. 5:23 describes man as a whole person with three parts: body, soul and spirit.

The body is the physical and visible part of us that relates to our environment. It is a dwelling, or "earthly tent." The outer court of the tabernacle or temple is used as an Old Testament example of our body. The body is not inherently evil, but is the chief abode of "indwelling sin" mentioned in Romans 7:15-23 even after the person is born again in his spirit.

The soul is our personality or uniqueness and consists of our mind (thinker) our will (chooser) and our emotions (feeler). These three capabilities give us the ability to relate to other human beings. The soul is sometimes referred to as the "inner man." The Holy Place of the tabernacle or temple is an Old Testament example of the soul.

The spirit determines who we really are. It is the part of man with the capability of relating to God directly. We were born spiritually dead to God and alive to sin and Satan. However, this defect was rectified by that wonderful exchange at the cross where we not only met our Savior but where our "old man" was crucified with Him and the "new man" in Christ emerged. What a beautiful exchange! What an amazing Unexplainable life!

(Credit given and adapted from Exchanged Life Ministries Texas Grace Life Conference Lecture)