A taste of Dr. John Best’s book, “Exchanged Lives!”
This is a brief taste of Dr. John Ernest Best’s book entitled, “Exchanged Lives! Stories of People Who Discovered That They Were Eagles and How to Soar by Their Union with Christ.” These stories, for the most part, are from the many people he and his staff have counselled at Exchanged Life Ministries Texas, in the Dallas area. This book and many other resources can be purchased at www.abundantlivingresources.org. The following is from the back cover:
“Have you wondered if God can truly be all you need for what you really need? The testimonies in this booklet are the stories of 31 individuals who have experienced by faith what God has already provided for them in Christ. These people once were in life-long ruts. From their perspective there was no possible escape, unless what we had to share with them would work. Read in this book the stories of their dilemmas and deliverance. They will encourage you to trust the Lord for everything you face and every inner need you have.”[1]
The stories are organized into three topical sections:
1) Appropriating the exchanged life
2) Living the exchanged life
3) The exchanged life and specific problems
I was particularly intrigued by the testimony of one of the writers named Jack Cole. After becoming a believer, Mr. Cole writes, “It took almost twenty years of my wandering in the desert of religion and pursuing the world and my fleshly desires before I began to seek Him (God) diligently.” [2] Things began to turn around spiritually for him, but “a series of events, including a church split and startup of a new church plus, several moral failures among Christians, unsettled me.”[3] Subsequently, he had a devastating experience with one of his children and he discovered that his faith “was not sufficient for the life I was being required to lead. The event exposed my flesh as being full of pride and totally inadequate.”[4] He was then introduced to the Exchanged Life Ministries, where he and his wife “discovered a much bigger God and experienced His unconditional love in the midst of the pressure. We found out our identity in Christ and were ministered to by Him and the staff of Exchanged Life. We learned how God allows circumstances and people to bring us to a point of brokenness so that He is then able to live His life in and through us.”[5]
In the one of the most eloquent and succinct descriptions of the Exchanged Life that I have read to date, Mr. Cole writes:[6]
“The exchanged life is one of the foundational truths of Christianity. I first understood and experienced the blessings of “Christ as life’ in the early 1980’s. My understanding of the Christian life prior to that was not sufficient for the trials I was experiencing nor for what I was observing in other Christians. We were leading defeated Christian lives. When I discovered that Christ’s work on the cross was not limited to dying for my sins, but that He was raised to give me new life, my life began to change and take on a new dimension?”
“I now know, believe and experience the truth that Jesus Christ was crucified for all my sins (past, present & future) and became my Savior; that He died, was buried and raised by God the Father to new life in the greatest outworking of His power, and that Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven and now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding on behalf of all believers, including me.”
“I believe that I was co-crucified with Christ, was buried with Him and was raised with Him, ascended with Him and am seated with Him in heaven. I believe that I am completely forgiven, that Christ lives I me in the person of His Holy Spirit, that I have been placed into Christ (i.e. placed into His life with all of its ramifications), that my old Adamic spirit has been crucified, dead and gone forever and in its place I have been given a new spirit as my deepest identity and eternal life, which is the life of Christ, my very life.”
“I have not only been saved from all my sins but also have been given a new identity. I have had my old spirit (old man, old identity) exchanged for my new spirit. I am a new person in Christ. I still retain indwelling sin and its attendant flesh. However, the life of Christ in me (in the person of the Holy Spirit) is ministering healing and truth to my entire being (body, soul and spirit) in such a powerful way as to keep this indwelling sin in check. This indwelling sin and its outworking of flesh patterns in my members, although energized by Satan and encouraged by the world, is not me. It’s in me; but is not me. I am forever a righteous, secure, significant, and loved child of God ready to do His will. Now that’s an exchanged life worth living!”
That’s just one of 31 testimonies contained in this book. I strongly suspect you will find one that coincides with your particular spiritual journey. It’s a fascinating read.
[1] John Ernest Best, Th.D., Exchanged Lives! Stories of People Who Discovered That They Were Eagles and How to Soar by Their Union with Christ (Garland: Abundant Life Resources, no date given), Back cover.
[2] Ibid. 23.
[3] Ibid., 23.
[4] Ibid., 23.
[5] Ibid., 24.
[6] Ibid., 24.