The Best Trade Ever Made

When I was a boy I collected baseball cards. My favorite Major League Baseball team was the New York Giants. In 1958 the Giants moved to San Francisco. My goal was to acquire the baseball card of every player on the Giants team. Every chance I got I would buy a pack of baseball cards, but those purchasing chances didn’t materialize very often. I had to depend on my mother for that. No one ever knew which major league player’s cards were inside those packages. The delicious bubblegum inside the package was an added bonus. For weeks the cards smelled just like the bundle gum. The gum was important. Every little leader needed a big  chaw of bubblegum to pooch out their cheeks when they were playing baseball.

How were we able to get all of the baseball player’s cards for our favorite team? We traded for them. The problem was that to get all the Giants player’s cards I had to let go of some of the good players from other teams. No one would trade a Hank Aaron, a Mickey Mantle or players of that caliber. But very often in order to trade for the Giants player’s cards I needed I would have to give up some valuable players from other teams, teams that I kind of liked. We knew which baseball player’s cards were the best. Giving up one of those even for one of the less known Giants players was very hard to do. Those sacrifices weren’t easy, but sometimes they were necessary. Very often I reluctantly gave up a more valuable, more prestigious card for one of lesser value to get the one I needed.

Over the years I made some good trades, but the best trade I ever made had nothing to do with baseball cards. There is a man who traded the most valuable thing for something I had that he thought was valuable and precious. His name is Jesus. He wanted me, my life, so much that he was willing to trade his life, his righteousness for my sin. Why did he do that? Because he loved me. He viewed me as being valuable and precious. What did I give up? I gave up my sin, all of it, so that I would no longer belong to Satan. What did I gain? I got the righteousness of Jesus. I got His Holy Spirit. I got adoption papers into God’s family. I got eternal like.

I made some very good trades for baseball cards, but none of those trades even came close to the trade I made with Jesus.