Wayne Allen's Testimony of the Exchanged Life

Wayne Allen's (a pastor of East Park Baptist Church) story is recorded by Norman Grubb in his book Nothing is Impossible:

"In my life I was trying too hard, wanting to achieve and wanting to serve God and do something for God.  I worked real hard, but so much of it was just energy in the flesh, just self-effort.  I went through a very long process of being very legalistic and pharisaical, and of course, this just robs you of your joy and freedom.  I was very judgmental, and most of my preaching centered on pet sins and trying to convict people of them.  My spiritual life was not really enjoyable.  I tried to say I was happy and convince everyone I was.  But it was phony, it was not real, because I didn't have any freedom.  Now I tell people I've become childish [really child-like], because I am as free as my five-year-old boy is.  Most of us have got the concept of salvation by faith through grace without works, but we've never got the concept that we are His workmanship and He is the worker.

"You relax, and God is God, and you are the instrument He's using, and you are real free and at ease.  And it gives you an openness.  I tell a lot of people things about myself I used not to speak of, because I was afraid of what they might think about me.  Like about praying.  I told one of the pastors here in town I just don't pray as I used to.  My prayer life is just a natural flowing thing.  When you come to the concept that Christ is one, and I am not I, but Christ [i.e., in union with Him; Christ is my identity], it's in the concept of talking to yourself [i.e., you no longer think of Christ and yourself as separate but joined as one spirit].  It's kind of strange to think of people talking to themselves.  There's a freedom that you don't have to worry about.  It's a release.  I've heard so many sermons and read so much about the Spirit setting you free and of the liberty in the Spirit, yet so few people really realize what it is all about.  It's so clear when you see the concept and understand it and it becomes experiential knowledge; then you see so much of it in the Bible.  It's a constant process, like being clay in the potter's hand.

"The problem so many times is that we can't enter into the real, relaxed, restful, and what I call natural Christian life, which means there is no real effort involved in it.  The only way that people can see Christ is to see us!  We are the demonstrations of what God is, and I think this is why it is so important that we always give a witness, a clear witness, that it is Christ operating in us.

"The world says you are an egotist just because you say 'I know I am saved and going to heaven'--we acknowledge that.  But then you start saying, 'God is operating in me,' that of course you can't tell the world!  In fact, you can't tell most Christians that 'I am a manifestation of Christ in the flesh.'  They think you are crazy, yet it is the truth.  I and Christ are one.  We say it, but most times we don't come into realization of this unity in Christ.  We get the old man crucified, but we never get the new man resurrected.  We spend all our time and energy in reckoning ourselves dead.  But Paul said in Ephesians 2:5, 'you hath He quickened [i.e.,made alive],' and we know that; but then we forget that he went on in verse 10 to say that 'we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.'  The good works, of course, is just Christ living in us and working by us, and we being one like the vine and the branch.  You can't separate them, they are one, and it is not a works thing.

"Christ has joined us to Himself and the Christ-life is just like breathing.  It's an unconscious condition.  Every time I start thinking about breathing, something is wrong.  When you are always watching everything you are thinking, saying, or doing, and making sure you are doing everything by some set of rules, you can't be used, because all your attention is focused on yourself.  But the union life is just a relaxed freedom, unbelievable freedom.

"You accept that physically God has a purpose in your personality and everything about you, and you accept yourself as God's perfect manifestation, just what He meant you to be.  Instead of 'trying' to reckon ourselves dead, we already are in Christ, and there is therefore no condemnation.  I don't think then we need to be afraid of being an egotist or of what the world thinks of us.

"I think this positive attitude also builds people's confidence in a person, because accepting self is what most people can't do.  It's the reality of Christ manifesting Himself in us, and when a person does have this self-confidence--which is not confidence in self, but in the Christ that is joined to self--this brings about leadership.  We no longer stifle our imagination of how big our God is.  People are looking for someone who knows where he is going, who knows who he is and what he is.  But some pastors give no clear leadership.

"Moses gave very clear leadership, as did Joshua and Caleb, whether people listened or not.  When the spies said 'We cannot go up into the land, the giants will eat us up,' Caleb answered, in effect, 'Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it, and the giants will be bread for us'!

"Your people will know whether or not you do know the will of God, and if you are happy, because they will see it.  As pastors we have to demonstrate this and be able to say, 'Yes, you can know the will of God, and this is what God is going to do.'

"All that you gain and do, grow and build, that's the Lord's.  It's the Lord's thing.  I don't have criticism from lost people; most of the criticism is from religious people.  They feel a person like me is an egotist.  Of course, that is the same problem that Jesus had, and I guess I'm supposed to have it too.

"When we begin to declare the unity we have with Christ--that I am in Christ and Christ is in me, and we are one--people don't believe that, and think we are crazy, or something is wrong.  When I first came to East Park, a nurse in the church thought I was taking drugs.  She came to me privately one day and said, 'Preacher, I want to ask you something in confidence and I pledge to you that I will never tell anybody, but I've got to know.  How is it that you are happy all the time?  Every time I see you, you are happy.  So I want to ask, Are you taking something?'  'Yes, Polly,' I said, 'I do take something.  I take a gos-pill every day.  That is where I get it.' Christ in you and you in Christ, and you are one.  That is freedom and people can't understand it when you are not burdened down by legalism.  The more you come over to being totally free of what people think of you, the more you are just natural and are yourself.  I don't have to be somber to be a preacher.  I'm far from it.  If I am a little crazy, then I am a little crazy, and if I like to cut up, I cut up.  I am free to be myself, without putting on any airs, and that's Christ totally expressing Himself."