Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

1. The focus of the Bible's stories should always be on ____________.

2. By touching these two people Jesus becomes ____________.

3. Jesus has taken your ____________ upon Himself.

Scripture Readings
Lamentations 3:22-33
2 Corinthians 8:1-15
Mark 5:21-43

Take It With You!

Here are some further thoughts to help you contemplate and celebrate Christ's Easter victory over sin, death, and the devil!

This Jesus is so infinitely everything - this same Jesus "made himself nothing" (Phil. 2:7). In Jesus "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (Col. 1:19); nevertheless, "though he was in the form of God," he "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Phil. 2:6). He "emptied Himself" (v. 7 NASB). The Everything became nothing.

And this is how far it went - here is what God, "for our sake," did through Christ: "He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). The Everything became nothing. For our sake.

On the cross, Jesus took upon himself our sin - our corrupt, fatal nothingness - then placed upon us his righteousness, his everythingness. It's what has been called "the glorious exchange."

That's the gospel. It takes those who essentially are nothing and have nothing and brings them to a glorious completeness of wholeness and perfection.

Tullian Tchividjian, Jesus + Nothing = Everything