What is Your Exchange Rate?

What is Your Exchange Rate?

In life, we give up what we cannot keep in exchange for what we can keep. Every day we are trading our life, our soul, for something. We can regard everything in life as an exchange of value or a trade. For example, we labor at work for our organization in exchange for money. We exercise and work in exchange for a healthy body. We interact with friends and relatives and treat them well in exchange for their love and friendship.

The person who drinks excessively, and spends hours in a bar, can exchange the habit or lifestyle for more family time, nurturing at home, and saving instead of spending. The one who smokes excessively exchanges money and time for a puff of nicotine and fleeting pleasure. The benefits derived from the transformed lifestyle are in exchange for yellow teeth, lung problems, cancer, and a shortened life.

When we hold on to hurt, negative feelings, and an unforgiving sprit, we exchange that behavior for the peace of God and probably our own forgiveness. We read in Matthew 6: 14, 15, “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” We need the mercy of God in our lives and cannot trade it for anything else.

Let me help you make a real exchange. If I send US $1.00 to my friend in Dominica, a country in the Eastern Caribbean, the recipient will receive Eastern Caribbean $2.68 in exchange. The friend would get $6.78, in Trinidad currency while a Barbadian would receive $0.50. A person would exchange the same US dollar for $154.50 in Jamaica currency. The US dollar remained the same, but its value differed depending on the exchange rate in each country. I said before, we keep on exchanging as life continues, and the rates differ.

What would be your exchange rate if you had to exchange your life for something better?

In the Bible, I encountered some people whose exchange rates were quite exorbitant. Moses was the son of Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi. He was born in Egypt during the period when the Israelites (Hebrews) had become a threat to the Egyptians simply because of their large population. The Pharaoh ordered his men to throw all newborn male Hebrew children into the Nile. Pharaoh made the decree because the Hebrews, the children of Israel, were becoming so mighty and formidable.

He had to put a stop to their rapid population growth. Therefore, he placed them in the hand of taskmasters who worked them mercilessly. When that scheme did not make the difference he anticipated, he demanded that the midwives kill every boy child delivered by the Hebrew women. The midwives feared God, did not follow through, and the number of Hebrews increased.

Amram and Jochebed came up with a strategy, not theirs, but one orchestrated by God. They hid their newborn son until it was too difficult to keep him in the house longer. The mother took the son and placed him in a waterproof basket, and set him among the tall grasses of the Nile. Meanwhile, his sister, Miriam, hid and watched over the baby from a distance. Pharaoh’s daughter came to the river for her regular bath. While there, she heard the baby’s cry, She found and rescued him. She named him "Moses," meaning "drawn from the water." The baby fulfilled her desire for a son, and she ensured he had the best of everything befitting a prince, including an Egyptian education.

Moses grew up amid the splendor of the Egyptian court as the Pharaoh's grandson. Grown to manhood, he knew of his Hebraic roots and shared a deep compassion for his confined relatives. He was groomed to be the next Pharaoh. However, by faith, when Moses became of age, made a grand exchange.. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, “Choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater than riches than the treasures in Egypt for he looked for a better reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is visible.” (Hebrews 11: 23-27) Moses’ exchange rate was to leave or forsake the splendor and prestige of the court of Egypt and what it would mean to him, and side with the people of God.

In the book of Esther, we meet a young Jewish woman living in the Persian diaspora who finds favor with the king and becomes queen The king had become drunk on wine and commanded his wife, Vashti, to come out before everyone and parade her beauty. Queen Vashti refused. King Xerxes was so angry at her disrespect that he listened to the advice of his counselors and divorced Queen Vashti. Then, he called for a nationwide pageant to select a new queen.

Esther was taken to the citadel and found favor with Hegai, who had the responsibility of preparing the women for meeting with the king. Esther went through the ordeal, careful not tell anyone her nationality, as Mordecai, her uncle had warned her not to do.

The king found Esther the most beautiful and attractive contestant and placed the crown on her head. Queen Esther continued to hide her Jewish background throughout the ups and downs in the palace. Her uncle, Mordecai, knew it would not be in her best interest if anyone found out she was a Jew.

Sometime later, the king found out that Mordecai had saved his live, and with the help of Haman, Mordecai was greatly honored. Haman, desperate to destroy Mordecai, ordered a decree that everyone should bow down to him, but Mordecai refused to comply. He was so annoyed with Mordecai’s attitude toward him that he had the king unwittingly side with him to set a date for the extermination of all the Jews.

Mordecai sent word to Esther stating that she should go to the king to represent the Jews and save their lives. Esther responded that it was not her time to go before the king. Mordecai informed her that when the decree became effective, she would not be spared, and, probably, God had made her queen to save her people. Esther was hesitant, but after, she consented, saying, ‘I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

Esther risked her life, exchanged her life to save the Jewish people from destruction, total annihilation. Esther’s exchange rate was to jeopardize her life to save her people, the Jews.

What have you exchanged?

Many areas of our lives are an exchange where we are constantly faced with choices – choosing one thing over another. Every morning we are faced with a host of options, and the quality of our choices tell the quality of our lives.

God says in Romans 1: 23, that we are exchanging the glory of His immortal and great God for something lesser. We are replacing the Creator with the creature, Christ, with a created thing. The created may be something extraordinary, something needed, something of immense value, but should we exchange the Creator for a created object?

With God, we have access to the Source, the Producer, the Manufacturer, and the Originator Himself. Why make the exchange and choose the object over the Greater One? This is the type of exchange we make continually when it comes to God. As His servant, we must make an intentional examination. “Am I replacing God’s presence through prayer and Bible study for YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, or Netflix? Am I giving up the help I should give to someone in need to keep a few dollars in my pocket? Am I neglecting reaching out to the needs of others to spend time on my couch doing nothing?”

It is time to start reviewing or exploring our exchange rate and our relationship with God. Do you want to live on wasted years, only to realize that, in the end, you exchanged your life for things that perished and what you were holding on to is gone? You have the opportunity now to exchange your life and give it to the eternal Father, the ever-living God.

Today you have the opportunity to stop, pull back, and examine your life with greater intensity. Stop trading and exchanging your soul for things that do not profit.

I leave you with this verse: Mark 8: 36-37 - “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Think about it, seriously, intentionally, and prayerfully.