The Spirit of the Lord has spoken to me to teach you daily during the eight days before Easter, Resurrection Sunday.
Click here to sign up for my 7-day email teaching series,
The Season of Resurrection Miracles – beginning Palm Sunday and leading into Easter Resurrection Morning! I want to
flood your spirit with faith as you discover the miracle that was the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and what it
can accomplish in your life TODAY!
DAY THREE:
Tuesday, April 15th - Is it worth the exchange?
Dear Friend,
As we continue our countdown to Good Friday and Easter Resurrection Sunday, I hope your faith is being stirred up to believe and receive all God has in
store for you during this supernatural season of miracles, signs, and wonders.
If you’ve missed any of my
Season of Resurrection Miracles emails so far this week, click here to catch up.
Today, I want to discuss the seven exchanges Christ made available to His people who humble themselves at the foot of Calvary. I wrote exhaustively about
them in my book
The Cross, but I want to summarize
them for you:
EXCHANGE #1 — Our Sinfulness for His Righteousness
Our pristine parents chose the wrong tree. Adam and Eve believed the oldest lie in the book—“you shall be like God.”
Prior to that day, Man and God were one. Adam fellowshipped freely with his Father in the pristine brilliance of Paradise. Then, in the middle of
Paradise, Adam sided with God's great archenemy, and in that very moment a great creeping sickness entered his soul.
Only sin could possibly have been so strong and mighty, so dark and drastic, as to have driven a wedge between a timeless God and a temporal man. From
the womb we suffer under its congenital effects. It separates our hearts from His heart. It causes us to go left when we know we should go right.
It’s what makes us accept the counterfeit as real and reject the real as counterfeit. It drives us to our own destruction.
But when we approach the Cross we find an offer waiting. There, a perfectly righteous Man—one whose blood had never been infected by Adam’s
contagious, infectious disease of alienation from God—hangs willing to make an exchange with us.
“Give me your sinfulness,” He says. “I’ll give you my righteousness.”
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
EXCHANGE #2 — Our Shame for His Glory
And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I
was naked; and I hid myself. (Genesis 3:9,10)
The primal evidence of mankind’s plummet from grace was the presence of shame. It manifested in the first couple’s fear-soaked shrinking
from the presence of God. The sound of His footfalls had only the previous day filled their hearts with joy. Now His footsteps filled them with dread.
Their Father God had not changed. But they had.
“I was afraid … Because I was naked … And I hid myself.”
We know this shame well. It’s that sense of uncleanness we feel when we sin—when we violate God’s law—resulting in damage to
ourselves or others.
But there’s another type of shame many of us are far, far too familiar with – that humiliating sense of defilement and worthlessness we
sense when others use or abuse us.
The very history of the human race since the fall is little more than these two forms of shame dancing across the ravaged souls of men and women.
Abusing and being abused. Defiling and being defiled. Hurt people hurting people.
In one of the most astonishing of exchanges ever proposed, we are invited to trade our shame for His glory. It is, therefore, no wonder that
the book of Revelation reveals Jesus enthroned in that glory declaring: “Behold, I make all things new.”
EXCHANGE #3 — Our Curse for His Blessing
The law—the code of God’s immutable principles, character, and precepts woven into the very fabric of the universe—is not and never
was a curse. It was the violation of that law that unleashed a curse upon creation.
Humanity was created to live in blessing. God had delegated dominion authority to man. When man forfeited that delegated dominion to a deceiving
usurper, he set free a curse upon the earth in place of that blessing. Sickness, poverty, jealousy, rage, decay, and death permeated a once-perfect
system.
But thanks be to God! “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one
that hangeth on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)
EXCHANGE #4 — Our Brokenness for His Healing
Jesus once told a desperate father seeking healing for his child, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
That man walked away hand-in-hand with a son who was whole and free.
In the same way, those faith-filled souls who come to the cross believing that there Jesus bore their sicknesses, carried their pains, and by His
stripes they were healed—they walk away changed as well.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we
are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
EXCHANGE #5 — Our Poverty for His Abundance
The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who did not consider His equality with God
a thing to be grasped [clung to], but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant …”
Never has a man been so utterly destitute as was Jesus on that hill in those final moments. He became poor in every way a person can be poor. He had no
possessions, no comfort, no defenders, and no friends, save beloved John. Why? So that destitute paupers like you and me could become living heirs of
the King of Glory.
For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be
rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
EXCHANGE #6 — Our Rejection for His Acceptance
Who among us doesn't bear the invisible wounds and scars of being rejected by others? In self-defense, we learn early to reject others before we have
the opportunity to be rejected by them.
When Isaiah got a prophetic glimpse of the crucified King on that cruel cross, this is what he saw: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Jesus Christ is "the
stone which the builder's rejected." Speaking of Himself in the third person, Jesus told His disciples “He must suffer many things and be rejected
by this generation.”
Why was rejection by men and isolation from God such a key part of our Lord’s experience on the stake? Because He was our substitute. He suffered
our deep rejection so that we can now enjoy His acceptance. It is so we can come to God, not as groveling servants but as welcome sons and daughters.
But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:13 NASB)
EXCHANGE #7 — Our Death for His Life
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Ephesians 2:13 NASB)
Death’s reign began on Earth on the day Adam fell. That rule continued unchallenged and uninterrupted until death forfeited its right to dominion
by taking One it had no legal right to take—One who was not infected by the first Adam’s disease of sin.
The blood of Calvary’s crucified Lamb not only makes us spiritually alive, in His victory over Satan, He removes the sting of physical death. As
the writer of Hebrews explains:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15)
It’s Christ’s sacrifice and triumphant resurrection that we celebrate this week – along with every exchange and provision He made for us
along the way. It’s because of His great mercy that we can come to Him for life … it’s why the Holy Spirit challenges us in this time
to fast, to pray, and to honor the Lord.
There is still time to send in your prayer request and sow your Passover or Resurrection Seed offering in faith, believing for your greatest miracle to
come to pass in this prophetically anointed season appointed for miracles!
Make sure your prayer needs and your offering are here for
THIS GOOD FRIDAY and
EASTER RESURRECTION SUNDAY SERVICES.
Then make plans to join me in person for our
Easter Weekend Celebrations at World Harvest Church in
Columbus, Ohio or
Elkhart, Indiana,
or join us online on at
YouTube Live,
Facebook Live, or
RODPARSLEY.TV.
- Friday, April 18 @ 7pm ET: Good Friday Holy Communion Service
- Sunday, April 20 @ 10am ET: Easter Resurrection Sunday
DAY ONE:
Sunday, April 13th - Day 1: Miracles are in motion
DAY TWO:
Monday, April 14th - Day 2: God’s love on open display
DAY THREE:
Tuesday, April 15th - Day 3: Is it worth the exchange?
DAY FOUR:
Wednesday, April 16th - Day 4: Your season for victory
DAY FIVE:
Thursday, April 17th - Day 5: Give me a song at midnight!
DAY SIX:
Friday, April 18th - Day 6: Royal communion
DAY SEVEN:
Saturday, April 19th - Day 7: Your new season is about to begin!
