I hope you have been enjoying this series of messages: “The Exchanged Life”!, and the unique quotes from various Christian Pastor, Evangelists, Missionaries and Leaders. Each of their lives were exchanged for a life full in Christ.

Last week, we saw that the fulness of the Holy Spirit in our lives was evidence of the Exchanged Life. Today, I’d like us to consider the victories we can experience for the total exchange of our life for the life of Christ lived through us.

To truly experience a life of victory in Christ, we must know the fulldiscernment of Christ in our lives.

“knowledge” – Greek is ἐπίγνωσις epígnōsis, ep-ig'-no-sis; ; recognition, i.e. (by implication) full discernment, acknowledgement:—(ac-)knowledge(-ing, - ment).

“perfect” – Greek is τέλειος téleios, tel'-i-os; complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.); neuter (as noun, with G3588) completeness:—of full age, man, perfect.

In the early 1900’s Charles G. Trumbull was an editor of the Sunday School Times and played a key role in the formation of the Keswick Conference and the Victorious Life Testimony, a series of conventions held on the deeper life. He wrote several books, including What is the Gospel, and Taking Men Alive. When reading Mr. Trumbull’s biography, I noticed that he wanted his faith strengthened, but there were times when he was doing all he knew to do, yet he felt he was falling short. He was short in his spiritual effectiveness. He found himself,
1. “aware of great fluctuations in his spiritual life: on occasion in conscious fellowship with the Savior, and then again in the depths of defeat.”
2. aware of “failure before besetting sins…despite earnest prayer for deliverance, abiding victory was not his experience.”
3. Aware of a “conscious lack, in the matter of dynamic, convincing spiritual power that would work miracle changes in other men’s lives…’I was even doing personal work, the hardest kind of all; talking with people, one by one, about giving themselves to my Savior! But I wasn’t seeing results.’”
I think this reflects on a lot of us! Many of us have resolved and know that God will use the seed that He plants in others through us, and leave it there, yet like Mr. Trumbull, not seeing actual fruit leaves us “heartsick”. But something happened to Mr. Trumbull, he discovered a deeper realization in a familiar verse found in John 15:4–5.

Mr. Trumbull states,
“I realized for the first time that the many references throughout the New Testament to Christ in you, and you in Christ, Christ our life, and abiding in Christ, are literal, actual, blessed fact, and not figures of speech.”

He continues:
“At last I realized,” he declared, “that Jesus Christ was actually and literally within me; and even more than that: that He had constituted Himself my very life, taking me into union with Himself—my body, mind, and spirit—while I still had my own identity and free will and full moral responsibility….It meant that I need never again ask Him to help me as though He were one and I another; but rather simply to do His work, His will, in me, and with me, and through me….Jesus Christ had constituted Himself my life—not as a figure of speech, remember, but as a literal actual fact.”

Mr. Trumbull found a new understanding in God’s Word and more importantly in his relationship with Christ. This is a constant endeavor of every Christian to choose to pursue. Look at what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:12:

Notice the words “laid hold” in the NKJV or “apprehended” in the KJV.
In the Greek - καταλαμβάνω katalambánō, kat-al-am-ban'-o; to take eagerly, i.e. seize, possess, etc. (literally or figuratively):—apprehend, attain, come upon, comprehend, find, obtain, perceive, (over-)take.
1. Paul wanted to apprehend, to take eagerly, seize, possess, obtain, comprehend what he could find in Christ.
2. God “apprehended” to take eagerly, seize, possess, obtain, comprehend him (and us) that we might know Him and His purpose for us in Christ His Son!

Finally, let me finish with what Mr. Trumbull found:
“Jesus Christ does not want to be our helper; He wants to be our life.
He does not want us to work for Him; He wants us to let Him do His work through us, using us as we use a pencil to write with – better still,
using us as one of the fingers on His hand!”