Part of the curse that Jesus bore for us has to do with mental and physical sickness. Since He bore these things in His body, physical healing has been obtained for us. The fact that “we were healed” is always in the past tense. It has already happened.

When Jesus died on the cross, He took all the evil consequences due to the rebellion of the whole human race. One aspect of that has to do with curses and blessings. Because Christ was made sin for us, He was also made a curse. Why? So that we could partake of all the blessings.

The second exchange, which Derek presents today, is that Jesus became the sin offering, or the guilt offering, for us. He bore our sin in His body on the tree that we might be wrapped in the robe of righteousness that Isaiah has written to us about.

Today, Derek begins to reveal specific ways in which “the divine exchange” took place – Jesus bearing all the evil that we might receive all of the blessings that was due to Him. The first way that Derek mentions is: Jesus bore our punishment that we might have God’s forgiveness, or peace.

Jesus became our substitute by taking all of the evil that was due to our rebelliousness and sin—that we might receive all the good that was due to His eternal righteousness and complete obedience. What an exchange took place!

Isaiah writes to us about “the suffering servant,” who is recognized by biblical scholars to be Jesus Christ Himself. Not only was He the Son of Man, depicting human frailty, but He also took upon Himself our infirmities, our transgressions and our punishment.

In these studies on the theme of identification, Derek is going to be taking a look at the ways in which Jesus Christ identified Himself with us and how we are invited to identify ourselves with Him. Today, we examine Jesus’ most frequently used title of Himself, Son of Man, and see how He identifies Himself with humankind.

Finishing this week’s study, Derek goes over the last three stages of the “love walk.” He then confesses to having not loved as he ought to have many times, and leads us in a prayer asking forgiveness for failure to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

In today’s study, Derek relates an experience of the love of God that was poured out on him through prayer for a group of people in the Sudan. Then he begins to provide a list of steps that will bring God’s love to perfection in us. This he will do over the next few days in a succession of seven stages of character development.

Derek looks at the importance of love in the exercise of our faith and through the operation of spiritual gifts. If we are not using these gifts in an attitude of love, we are operating out of our flesh. This will not be profitable for us personally. We all must make love our aim.