Exhausted from multiple flights, I arrived at the Taoyuan International Airport with bleary eyes and dragging feet. Although I desperately wanted to stretch out horizontally, I had one more thing to do. Moving toward the currency exchange booth, I was thankful to find it open. 

The words “foreign exchange” were boldly posted in Mandarin and English above the booth. Thirty years since my first visit to the counter, I now had the option of an ATM, but fatigue and habit found me interacting directly with the currency clerk.

Honestly, language isn’t needed at the booth. The cashier knew why I had come as I neared the glassed-in kiosk. His only concern was the type of currency I would exchange. I slid green American cash into a metal indentation, and he quickly adjusted his exchange calculator to the current U.S. rate. He counted the New Taiwan Dollars twice before passing them to me through the money slide. The transaction took less than a minute.

Suppose I wanted to visit Taiwan but continue using American currency. Could the exchange clerk alter the exact U.S. bill I give him for local spending? Could he dye my green currency to match Taiwan’s blue and red ones? Could he erase Benjamin Franklin’s face and replace it with a blue sketch of Chang Kai Shek? Or could he carefully modify “in God we trust” to look like traditional Chinese characters? Of course not. To suggest such nonsense is to dismiss it.

Yet, we attempt this very thing in our Christian lives. When we come to Christ, we understand that His Life replaces ours. We open our hearts to Him, inviting Him in. But once we settle into the day-to-day busyness of life, we keep trying to pull out our old lives to manage problems. In a crisis, remembering the exchange God wrought in our lives is hard. We rely on our own patience (gentleness or kindness) to be enough, and we spend it liberally, only to find it is the wrong currency. 

Christ did not come to earth to change our lives but to exchange them. Just as no amount of alteration can make an N.T. dollar into a U.S. one, no amount of adjustment can make our fleshly lives holy. “Nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (Romans 7:18). 

Peace is never found within man, but only in Christ (Ephesians 2:14). Faithfulness is never found within man, but only in Christ (Hebrews 10:23). Love is never found within man (even the Christian), but only in Christ (Romans 8:39).

No matter how hard we try, all the virtues we long for cannot be found within us. Christ didn’t come to improve our life but to dissolve it into His. It is literally no longer you who live, but Christ’s life that now lives within you (Galatians 2:20). 

How frustrating it is when we offer the wrong currency. We try to disburse our righteousness by merely holding our tongues. We try to spend our patience by simply holding our temper. We try to dispense our own hope by repeating positive thoughts. Even if the situation temporarily accepts our fleshly currency, some crisis will find us out, and we will practice the very evil that we do not wish (Romans 7:19).

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled (Greek: katallasso – “to change, exchange, as coins for others of equivalent value”) to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled (katallasso), we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10). Notice, Paul uses the same word or a close derivative of it five times in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. 

When we received Christ’s life, we participated in the Divine Exchange. Like swapping foreign money, our sinful life was slipped underneath the barrier and traded for His Righteous life, one for one! His exchange even comes without transfer fees or mark-ups. “For He hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Hallelujah! Christ, the hope of glory, now lives within us (Colossians 1:27). “The old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

May we live His life today rather than trying to pawn off our old adjusted life. We have been exchanged, not merely changed. Hallelujah. Our striving is over (John 19:30).