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I had a special opportunity, along with 6 other volunteers, to share a message based on the above verse at a boys' home chapel service this past week.
I gave each boy a paper penny (a photo), telling them it represented a sin that has no value. One by one, the boys came forward to lay their paper penny at the altar of the chapel cross while sharing a sin or a need they could not achieve themselves.
Then I pressed a real penny firmly into each boy's hand representing a gift of God with real value. A real penny for a paper penny. A great exchange! The real penny represented God's provision through Christ for each boy's real need.
Each boy's specific need was rooted in HOPE. Hope to go home, hope to fit in, hope for a parent to get better, hope to behave better, etc. The real penny represented the hope of Christ. This hope is not just hope that Christ gives to each boy to work out the best he can. Christ Himself wants to unite His life to each boy and to live through each boy and to be hope for each boy!
Hope is not hope apart from Christ.
IT"S MORE THAN A CHANGED LIFE...
...IT'S AN EXCHANGED LIFE
Salvation is often perceived as being changed for the better so you can go to heaven later. This is true, but it is much deeper. Salvation is being exchanged for the best so you can live abundant life on earth now!
By being united with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, a person exchanges his former sinful identity for Christ's righteous identity. Salvation is more profoundly an identity issue than a destiny issue.
God revealed this to one of the boys during the chapel devotion. Below left photo left is the boy receiving his real penny. This boy wept with his face in his hands for the remainder of chapel.
After chapel, we all gathered around the boy as he prayed, with tears streaming down his face, to receive the life of Christ (below right photo)!
Jesus said, "Whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:4).
What a great exchange to realize!
What a glory of Christ to behold!
After a person experiences salvation through the exchange Christ offers through the cross, the person can grow to experience this reality in his daily walk. This daily walk is described in Isaiah 40:31 where the Hebrew word "renew" means "exchange."
But those that wait on the Lord, shall renew (exchange) their strength (for Christ's strength). They shall mount up with wings like eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint.
May this Rest Stop help us further see Christ in us as our strength!
PS, Journey in Christ is a member of the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries (AELM). This is an association of about 100 ministries around the world to encourage and edify each other to provide discipleship counseling and training to the body of Christ. Check out the website www.aelm.org | 
