What are the possibilities of the Christian life? To what bold frontiers might our faith aspire? Are a few believers destined for magnificent ministries, while others languish in mediocrity?

Dr. V. Raymond Edman, fourth President of Wheaton College, pondered these questions in his book, They Found the Secret: Twenty Transformed Lives That Reveal a Touch of Eternity (1960). He studied the lives of twenty prominent Christians to reveal a commonly shared “secret” that empowered each of these women and men for service.

Among the 20 figures featured in the book, Edman profiled: 1) John Bunyan, the unchained life; 2) Oswald Chambers, the highest life; 3) Amy Carmichael, the radiant life; 4) Andrew Murray, the abiding life; 5) Eugenia Price, the bouyant life;  6) Major W. Ian Thomas, the adventurous life; and 7) D.L. Moody, the dynamic life.

The secret (which is not really secret) is available to all who claim the name of Christ, not merely a select few.  It is a matter of exchange.

“What is the exchanged life?” asked Edman. “Really, it is not some thing; it is some One. It is the indwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ made real and rewarding by the Holy Spirit…It is new life for old. It is rejoicing for weariness, and radiance for dreariness. It is strength for weakness, and steadiness for uncertainty…It is lowliness of spirit instead of self-exaltation, and loveliness of life because of the presence of the altogether Lovely One.”