“As a fair exchange–I speak as to my children–open wide your hearts also” (2 Corinthians 6:13)

While time for Christmas giving has passed, the season of returns has just begun. Some estimate that up to 20% of holiday gifts are returned each year amounting to billions of dollars in merchandise. What do you do when you receive a gift you can’t use?  Many folks simply take it back to the store where it was purchased and just exchange it for something else. The late Johnny Carson is credited with once having said – “The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” What if your holiday present happens to be a symbolic fruitcake taking the form of one of those gift cards from a place where you don’t even shop? Now days one of the new trends is to go online and do a gift card exchange for cash.  While you do not get the full face value of the card, some sites claim to get you up to 90% of what the giver paid. But seller beware, just like the rest of our society – there are scams out there that are targeting folks who are both buying and selling gift cards making it not always the fair and easy exchange some might promote it to be.

Sometimes though there are gift exchanges done on earth that just may have been a match made in heaven. Here is just one of those. Jay Matuska and Jackie Sitkowsky met five years before working for Habitat for Humanity. They fell in love, but their blossoming relationship was clouded by Jay’s failing health and need for a kidney transplant. Jackie would have gladly provided a kidney to the love of her life, but she was not genetically compatible.  As the Milwaukee couple were about to be married, they found out that a donor had been located for Jay many states away in Georgia. There, Blake Underwood had hoped that he could be a donor for his mother who was also in need of a kidney. While he was not a match for her, he was a perfect match for Jay. But Chandra, Blake’s mom, also found her seamless match at another household where, as it turned out, two kidneys would just swap addresses.  The newlywed couple, would not only receive a kidney for Jay, but his wife Jane would provide one of hers to Chandra. Following the separate surgeries in different states – the two families have reconnected to share their gratefulness for each other, realizing that there is a new future in store for each of them.

Jesus had His own take on a fair exchange for giving ‘new life’.  He spoke about it with his followers as He predicted His own death. “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels’”(Mark 8:34-38).  Similar recordings are also found in Matthew 16:24-28 and Luke 9:23-27.

These words are particularly poignant in a world where it would seem that those who speak out for Christ are being persecuted more than ever. As we journey through this life and follow the teachings of Christ, we come to find new meaning in the phrase “we all have our own cross to bear.” Jesus calls on each of us to lay down our life for Him. Unfortunately in many parts of the world, this may literally involve violence and suffering. To others, it might simply necessitate giving up those things that Jesus would have despised in order that we might embrace those things that He would love. The call to follow Him is more than that of simple belief; it is rather a call to action. So we are faced with this choice: we can do as the world would have us do and live for the temporal pleasantries of today. Or we can follow Jesus with the understanding that we may suffer some hardships through the denial of self in the present. In doing the latter we will position our self for everlasting peace, joy and contentment for all of Eternity. Now that seems like a fair exchange at the beginning of a new year . . . or anytime for that matter.

REFLECTION:  Who is the master of your life? What have you done with the gift that Jesus offers? In order to follow Him, what are those things you might need to exchange?  What would be required of you to put your own plans to death and commit yourself to His will?

A NEW LOOKUP  DEVOTION IS UPLOADED EACH WEEK. THE NEXT WEEKLY POSTING WILL BE ON SAT., JANUARY 9, 2016.  COMMENTS ARE WELCOMED.