The Daily Exchange Rate

Last week’s group started with an apology. Now we talk a lot about not “posing” in our group and being authentic with one another. But when one of our guys feels the need to apologize to the group for something that few of us even knew about, maybe we have reached a new and better place. He was humbled by telling his story and his feelings resonated with all of us. We had all been there, but many of us had not done as well with the apology part of the story.

That was followed by another guy sharing what has been grabbing him about the Gospel writer Luke as he reads Thirty Years That Changed The World by Michael Green. His personal commentary was great. Equally important to me was that we have created a place where guys want to share the excitement of their faith however and where ever it’s developing.

It’s amazing where a good group of guys struggling to follow Jesus better in their daily lives can take you. Apologies and personal commentaries open windows into our hearts and minds as God is working in us. Group is a great place to grow!

And then we moved on to our session on Life Rules. “We are a product of acceptance and rejection in our lives.” “Our view of God is shaped by the doses of acceptance and rejection in our lives.” “God doesn’t call us to change people, but to accept them because accepting people first can lead to change.” These are not exact quotes, but Andy Stanley pushed us on the topic of acceptance: We are called to accept others as God has accepted us.

As I sat quietly (I wasn’t leading – we’re sharing leadership to help prepare ourselves for multiplying sometime in the next year or so and it was nice to just sit in the circle.), I wrote these thoughts in my journal: We often operate on the basis that acceptance is an exchange and that we are accepted by others in an exchange - a sort of relational consumerism. I accept you if I get something and I am accepted if I have something to give to someone. If there is nothing to exchange, we are slow to accept and often don’t even make the effort. But our relationship with God doesn’t fit that equation. What can I possibly have to exchange with the God of the Universe? Everything we have is God’s anyway so an exchange doesn’t make much sense. God changes the equation.

The starting point for God is not an exchange, but a gift. God’s acceptance of us is nothing but a freely given gift. Once we accept God’s gift, we can then enter into our covenant – our exchange – with God: I will be your God and you will be My people.

Accepting others as we are accepted by God changes the equation of our everyday life. Relational consumerism gives way to Godly gift giving. What an impact shifting the equation would have on our relationships with difficult people. What would happen in your life if you began to give God’s gift instead of continually monitoring the daily exchange rate?