Exchanged

Psalm 103:1-4

1 Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. 2 Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me.3 He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.4 He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.

I do not claim to be a theologian or know anything about hermeneutics, but I do know what God speaks to my heart through the Bible, through my times of prayer & journaling, through the mouths of those wiser than I.

The reality of a relationship Jesus is a new revelation to me. I spent many years having what I thought was a relationship but it was just a show. A show of what I thought it should be. It wasn't until recently that I had a true understanding of my desperate need for Jesus.

Through a series of events I allowed myself to buy into bitterness. I didn't understand that when I chose bitterness, I stole my own joy. It wasn't the devil....it was me. Did the devil play into it? Of course, but the initial decision was my own. All that I am stopped praising the Lord because of a single decision I made. There is nothing wrong with feeling hurt or anger, but there comes a point when you make a decision to wallow and not turn to Jesus...I wallowed...for a year.

The truly sad part is that I had myself convinced that I was OK. I wasn't. My spirit was starved, my heart cried of loneliness.....I was depriving myself of God, the only thing that satisfies. It so easy to put the blame on God for walking away from us, but in reality we are usually the ones that do the walking away. God didn't move, he stayed with arms wide open and tears for our hurts, tears that cleanse us.

There were several moments over the course of my "year of bitterness" that my spirit would turn and catch glimpses of all God had done for me, all that he brought me through, all the blessing, but I never turned long enough to be changed. I think a lot of people get angry because they think God didn't show up, God didn't speak to them, or God seemingly didn't care. My friends, those are untruths. In all honesty, we don't show up, we don't talk to God and we don't care. I had myself tricked into believing I truly cared about God. If I did, my sole intention for living would have been to know Jesus more. Looking at my life I was a good example of someone not living a life directed by the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5:19-21, Paul describes the heart of a person that follows their sin nature.....almost all of those things have been active in my heart over the past year! It was so blatant, but I still believed I was in a relationship with Jesus. When in reality, I couldn't have because I wasn't living a life to inherit the Kingdom of God.

So, where does that leave me now?

Vicky Beeching says in her song Created "If we don't worship you, we'll search for substitutes, to fill the void in our soul, worshiping other things destroys our liberty, but as we praise you we are free." I am not satisfied with the substitute I called in, and I want the REAL thing. I want to be free. I am desperate to live a life solely intentioned to gain more of Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit living inside of me, a life seeking to increase those three in my inner woman, and a life to rid my spirit of the death I allowed to creep in it.

A dear friend introduced me to the theory that we are living a life of exchange. I sacrifice one thing to gain more of another. The theory works both ways. If I sacrifice intimacy with Jesus to live out a lust of my flesh, I increase death to my spirit. However, if I sacrifice my selfish ambition and my sin and my substitutes then Jesus has to increase. It is not a sacrifice out of obligation but a sacrifice out of an intense love and desperate need to have more of the Holy Spirit, more of God, more of Jesus living inside of me.

I need the tangible presence of God in me.