The Exchange

 One of the most powerful words ever spoken by Jesus is found in the simple word, "Come." We know the word in English to mean a movement towards something or someone. In the Aramaic/Greek, which was the language of the Jews of Christ's time, the meaning of the word for come meant, "transact." That meaning speaks to me on many levels. The meaning of the word transact, or more properly, transaction, is "an interaction or exchange between people." This makes what takes place when a person truly comes to Jesus Christ so clear and beautiful. We experience an interaction and an exchange.

Think about that for a moment. When we come to Him in faith, there is a definite interaction between He and us. We experience Him and He covers us. It's a mystical, spiritual, and beautiful interaction. By faith, we may also have a transaction take place. Though we have nothing to offer in ourselves, we do have something, many things, that He desires from us. He seeks that there be an exchange between us.

He invites us to exchange our mourning for dancing, our ashes for His beauty. He calls us to give Him our cares, fears, lost hopes, and emptiness, and in exchange, He gives us His peace, courage, confidence, hope, and fulfillment. He asks that we give Him our darkness in exchange for His Light, our death for His Life. Our guilt for His forgiveness. Our despair for His joy. Our life for His Life and our will for His will. In essence, He asks us to give Him everything that has kept us from Him. Everything in our lives that is killing us by inches. 

I think that perhaps the most beautiful picture I can envision in this exchange is this; He invites us to exchange the filthy rags of our own righteousness for the white raiment of His holiness and purity. He also invites us to exchange the orphan status that is the lot of all who are without Him for the high favor and joy of becoming sons and daughters of the King. 

This transaction, this exchange that He invites us to and into gains us all the riches to be found in Christ and His Kingdom. Infinite riches, and it costs us nothing yet everything. It costs us the laying down of our lives so that we might live in the fullness of His. There is no currency but the currency of faith and surrender. 

Have you ever made this transaction? Have you ever experienced this exchange? If not, you can. Right now. He invites you to come, and exchange that which is crushing you for that which lifts you up. Let go of the weight that pulls you deeper and deeper into the darkness and lay hold of His Life that lifts you to heights you never dreamed of. Come. Come to Him now.

Blessings,
Pastor O