Exchanging our old lives for new

Religion

Discussion

July 31, 2009

SAM SMITH Butterfly Ministries

Anonymous The Jacksonville Daily Progress Fri Jul 31, 2009, 09:52 AM CDT

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” [1 Peter 1:3]

If you were asked to name someone that you would choose to exchange lives with, could you think of whom it would be?

Would you choose someone famous: a movie star, a television star a recording artist? Would you just choose someone wealthy, a billionaire?

How about a professional athlete? It is a silly question, but I think many of us think about it at times, “It would be great to have their lives, their fame, their riches.”

Of course we all know that riches and fame do not always make a good life. The rich and famous have their share of misfortune and heartache and then some – not all of them but so many of them.

It is certainly true that money cannot buy peace and happiness, but as we have heard it said, it makes the misery easier to deal with. It might be a harder decision than we think, “Who would we want to exchange lives with?”

We know we cannot exchange lives with anyone. That only happens in the movies, and even then it usually does not work out. We have to make the best of the life we have, and we can do that in two ways.

We either find ways to better our lives, or we have to learn to love the life we have.

The movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” comes to mind as I write this. Remember the old Jimmy Stewart movie?

He felt that his life became so hard and sad that he decided to end it. God sent an angel to show him how the world would be had he never been born.

Once he saw the difference he had made in so many lives and how many people loved him, he begged to get his old life back. I have a feeling that if that happened to us, we might decide that our lives are pretty great after all.

There is one person that has exchanged lives with us already. Jesus left His perfect home in paradise, came to Earth as one of us and gave His life for us.

He took our sins on Himself and died a horrible death on the cross at Calvary. Jesus exchanged His life for ours.

Incredible as it sounds, impossible as it seems, it is true. He who had no sin took all our sins and died so that we could have eternal life.

“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.” [Philippians 2:8]

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]

Through the love of God, we can exchange the life we have today for the life that He promised us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can put off the old self and put on the new.

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitudes of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” [Ephesians 4:22-24]

How can anyone not want to exchange their present life for the new life promised us through the death and resurrection of Jesus?

Those who have experienced the exchange know how wonderful it is, and it is our blessed duty to show and tell others of the wonder of it all.

Maybe we cannot exchange our lives with anyone else on the physical plane, but we can become new creatures in Christ - and what a glorious exchange it is!

“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” [Romans 6:4]

DR. SAM SMITH, BUTTERFLY MINISTRY ssmithkate@aol.com. Your comments are welcomed.

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