The Great Exchange

Rembrandt's painting, "The Return of the Prodigal" gives us a glimpse of that moment when the returning prodigal son collapses on the ground before his father.  All those in the painting are dressed in extravagance while the young son is dressed in the rags of poverty.  Luke 15:22 tells of the physical transformation as the father calls to the servant to bring a robe, a ring, and sandals. Suddenly the appearance of the son is transformed.   

What Luke enables us to visualize happens spiritually when we decide to come to the Father.  The Apostle Paul spoke of that moment visualized for us by the gospel writer as a moment for taking off and putting on. (Ephesians 4:22-24)  When we come to the Father through Jesus a remarkable inner transformation takes place.  In that moment of taking off the way of life which has taken us away from our Creator and choosing to once again claim the reality that we bear His image, someone new is brought into being.  It is no wonder that John, the gospel writer, described it as a new birth and the Apostle Paul referred to it being a moment when a new creation comes into being.  

When we come to Christ, the person we were no longer exists.  Before coming to Christ we were all wrapped up in ourselves and the pursuits of our own ego.  The life we lived was a very small life as any life must be when its center is self.  As we come to Christ we discover that it is not ego which is the prime directive of our life, but the Holy Spirit.  Coming to Christ is coming home.  It is choosing to live where we belong and to be who we were created to be.  It is indeed a moment of  exchanging the rags of brokenness for the robe of wholeness.