Beautiful Exchange

This past tuesday Ash and I had the honor to go see Hillsong in LA. To say it was amazing would be an understatement. It was mind blowing. There is something about worshiping in a room with tons of strangers that is SO powerful. You know in those moments that the revival that is happening right now is no joke. As we battle to know Christ more in our daily lives, others are fighting the great fight alongside us, and there ARE hearts set on fire by the Living God to be passionate for His truths. We spent over 2 hours in huge, loud, beautiful and exhausting worship. I havent had a worship experience that raw and that precious in so long. I couldn't sing loud enough or raise my hands high enough. I was desperate for a taste of our Holy Lord and to offer Him just a pinch of what He deserves from me and my life. I wish I could have physically placed myself in His hands as a song of surrender and in response of my addiction to His love and ways for my life. I am in such great need for His everything.

The tour, as well as their new album just released, is called A Beautiful Exchange. One of the Hillsong pastors explained the meaning behind this wonderful name.

When we give ourselves over to the Lord, give Him the junk, the heartache, the guilt, the sin, the good, the bad, the ugly, in return He gives us His everything. We get ALL of Him when we give Him all of us. We give Him sin, He gives us life. If that isnt a beautiful exchange I dont know what is. I have never really thought of it that way. That Christ paid the price for us, but it is in the moment of exchange of our lives for His that we become whole in Him. What a gift!!!

When we give up areas of our life, we give God the room to move. He has room to invade to make His will in our lives. But if we keep our lives and our sin and our will, God cant move. He is stuck. We dont have a place for Him to be. What a revelation this was for me to hear this. We have to allow God room to move in our lives, if that is our desire to be covered by Him. I want to give Him as much room as I possibly can, bc the space that I am taking up is all broken. I need His ways not mine.

They have a new song called "Beautiful Exchange." The video is at the bottom, and is a long song, but I think it is a perfect opportunity for us to enter into a gateway for an exchange that you may be feeling needs to happen with you and God today. I have no idea what you may need to hand over to God to allow Him to fill you up with more of Him, but I know there is something. I have SO many things that I need to clean out and exchange with Him. I pray that as you listen to these words and read the lyrics, that your heart would be softened. I pray that you would understand the weight of the love of Christ and how deep it runs for you. No matter how far you have run from Him, or how much sin is clouding your view of His ways for you, I pray that you would be able to surrender that to Him today. That you would know that only His love can break through to make such a beautiful exchange.

I love you girls,

Natalie

This is quote from one of the worship leaders of Hillsong that I found that to me encompasses the truth of who we are supposed to be for Christ. May we really get this today:

“There are a lot of people who need to know Jesus. If our worship is just great youth meetings, nice songs, lots of jumping around and a few CDs, then we’re missing it. Our vertical expression must have a horizontal effect. So, we’ll continue to worship, praise and honor God with heart, soul, mind and strength the best we know how, but the fruit of that must be a generation who are totally committed to reaching the lost and helping those who need help, locally and globally.”