Exchanged

My old self has been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God,

who loved me and gave himself for me. 

Gal 2:19-21 (NLT)

I read this word with disbelief.  How can I be dead to sin when I so often feel the pull of temptation and often yield to its call.  I am so conscious of my own weakness and failure, its hard for me to get my mind around the idea that Christ actually lives in me.

The scriptural and theological picture is that of us dying with him and then being raised again to new life.  When we surrendered to Christ and trusted him as our savior he gave us new life, his life. Paul exhorts us to consider or deem this to be our true condition no matter how we feel. (Romans 6:11.) There is great power in this reckoning.

The truth of the matter is that the eternal Christ has chosen to take up residence in us.  We now have the power to choose not to give in to our own ways, but to yield to his. As we recognize and yield each moment to his life within, we begin to experience victory over those things that bring us down.  We live by faith in his indestructible life within us.  It is an exchanged life - my life for his.

I declare, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me."  You are here living in me, Lord. Help me to yield and defer to your life within at every moment so that I may experience victory and joy.  I turn away from myself and recognize your presence in me.

He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have.

And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us

by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 

Romans 8:3 (NLT)

Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ

so that sin might lose its power in our lives.

We are no longer slaves to sin.

 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

  So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin

and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:2,6,7,11 (NLT)