Getting To Know Jesus: A Conversation With Lisa Harper
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It's time to take the quiz. Five questions, five minutes a day, five days a week. Take the quiz every weekday at thequiz.fox and then listen to the quiz podcast to find out how you did. Play, share, and of course, listen to the quiz at thequiz.fox. It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream.

Y'all, I'm so excited today about who's joining us on the podcast. Yes, I'm a little sing-songy. And I just have to tell you, I met this person. I've always admired her. I love her work. But I met her for real a few months ago. And it's truly one of those things where I felt like within five minutes, like, oh my gosh, this person's going to be a really good friend of mine. Now, I don't know if she feels that way about me, but that's how I feel about her. Ag.

Actually, I didn't officially, officially. Well, I kind of officially met you, but it was you won't remember. But it made such a dent in my heart because I have I am a massive Shannon Breen fan. As a matter of fact, I can't wear shorts around you because you'd see the SB tattoo. There's a different reason I don't wear shorts because you don't want to see what's happening on my thighs.

Well, we last year, not this past year, but the year before after the K-Love Fan Awards, I actually got to be in the same wall. That's right. Yes, we did. And so I'm like, any woman who loves God, who also every blue moon eats at Waffle House, that's my girl. Okay, so y'all. I've loved you from the cheap seats for a long time. I, my friend, I was so excited when I saw you at the Waffle House. But you're right. We didn't really chat, but I was like, that's Lisa Aron.

Lisa Harper. And by the way, that's who our guest is, Lisa Harper. She has authored amazing books. She's a Bible teacher. She does. She shows up everywhere. And you're not only going to learn, but you're entertained. She has the sweetest heart. She's hilarious. She's got a master's in theological studies from Covenant Seminary. By the way, she's working on her doctorate. Well, I've got to ask you how that's going.

but has written all these books, has the most amazing podcast where you will learn something new every time you listen. And I do, even though Biscuit Bream tries to distract me on our walks. But she's got this brand new book. And listen to this title. Buckle up, y'all. Jesus, a scandalously devoted, conspicuously uncool, super transparent homage to who our Savior is and how much he loves us. Lisa, did you workshop that? Because I have a

feeling most publishers would be like, we're not doing that. I didn't, they totally said they weren't doing it. Um, because it's, you know, it's like me, it is, you know, and I always want to qualify the conspicuously uncool is about me, not Jesus. Um, but I had a devotional out, uh,

I guess two years ago that had another one of those crazy long titles. And I just told them, I said, y'all, I am not C.S. Lewis or Ann Voskamp. I'm not that smart. So I want people to know when they pick up this devotional, you know, it'll hopefully have some really good biblical context.

content, but it's going to be pretty accessible. So we'll dive deep into the pages of Scripture and into who God is, but hopefully we'll have a few belly laughs along the way. And so they were very gracious. And Shannon, you know me well enough to know that I am nothing if not verbose. So I was glad that we got one. We love that about you.

I love that. And Missy, your sweet daughter, who I've also got to spend a little bit of time with, she is one of the stars of the show too. She is. Because you share personal stories and all kinds of things. And I just love the relationship you guys have. Well, you know, it's such a, every relationship is miraculous. I was talking with a friend this morning. We were just talking about the embodiment of,

grace, how God gives us, you know, the body of Christ isn't a metaphor, that he gives us each other. One of my favorite dead scholars, you know, I love all the dead ones. I love the living ones too. But a guy named Leslie Newbigin said that the community, you know, us as rubbing shoulders with each other is the most effective hermeneutic of the gospel. In other words, we see Jesus more clearly in

through the lens of doing life with other people. And I had been such a train wreck in my 20s and 30s. I had some abuse when I was younger, and I ended up being real drawn toward abusers. And God protected me from the men I was most attracted to. And then the few good godly guys I dated, God protected them from me because I was on a stick for so long.

So I really wasted the years that I could have carried children in my body if that had been God's plan for me. And it wasn't until I was in my 40s when God had pulled kind of the deepest roots of toxicity out of my heart and mind that he allowed me to step into Missy's story after her first mom died in Haiti.

And the doctors told me not to even start the adoption process because Missy was really sick. And the prognosis was she would die long before the adoption was finalized. And I got to bring her home to Tennessee. And so the fact that he, you know, shoot, I'm trying not to cry. Could be the case. So the story, the fact that he restored years that I had just lost.

been scared, been really ruled by fear. And he restored those years that I kind of, you know, willingly served up to Yoka Locust. And he allowed me to become her mom through the miracle of adoption the year I turned 50. So I went through menopause and motherhood at the same time. Oh, boy. Just continues to slay me. I can't quite believe that.

what a good God he is. So yeah, there's a lot of stories about Missy in there, but you know, kind of the, whether you have children or you don't have children, or you wish maybe you had a few less children, some of the people listening are harried mamas, but it's really more about the redemptive mercy of God, that there's no mistake so heinous in our backstory that it puts a lid on our future. He is a good God.

good God who's for us. And he's always in the process of redeeming our story. We'll have more live in the bream in a moment. The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at foxbusinesspodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.

You say in the intro to this, and this is a devotional which I love because people will get stories, they'll get entertained, but there's real meat to dig into. There's scripture to work through, and it's a real guided look at who Jesus is. And you talk about how you want to talk about Jesus the person, because that's different.

You know, we we stand back and think he can't be sullied with the likes of us. But he came to us and took on flesh and was among us, is tempted in the ways we were suffered in the ways that we were suffered worse than most of us ever will. And did so willingly. He went to the unlovable's.

You know, one of my favorite things from childhood is thinking about my Sunday school song about Zacchaeus was a wee little man. Yes, wee little man was me. Yeah. Oh, by the way, we will have to get into the fact that you used to be in a music group back in the day. Oh, I was so bad, Jan.

I'm still waiting for the pictures. I know from your childhood, from your teen years, there was roller skating. There was roller skating. I was way into roller skating. And you had a music group. I can't.

I can't believe you remember that. Oh, heck yeah. Where all the bodies are buried. This is the good stuff. I wanted to be, you know, the next Amy Grant. And the problem is I am almost tone deaf and my hair is not nearly as beautiful, nor are my hips as narrow. And so, yeah, for a very short season, my best friend and I started a Christian singing group called Priority.

So I had a total of three live concerts. Hey, that's three more than I've had. Well, I mean, you know, it was my dad's church and a dinner on the grounds and a bunch of really sweet old people and folding lawn chairs. So I'm using the term loosely, but it was a train wreck. But I did have this from an early age, just this

passion, you know, to love God and his people. What I didn't believe in an early age was that he really loved me. I knew he had saved me.

But from my earliest memory, Shannon, I felt dirty. And so I thought I've just got to be good. I've got to be good. And it took even after my first go around in seminary, you know, I could wrap some multi-syllabic theological terms around how God loves us. And I would believe it for you. But I had a hard time believing how the king of all kings was.

could actually sully himself with me. And I knew he had to deliver me because that's like in his job description as the savior of the world. I just couldn't. He committed to that. Yes, he committed to that. I just couldn't imagine him delighting in me. And so it's really been a lifelong quest to

to learn what it is not just to know Jesus as you said as a proposition to be studied, which is I think our tendency in Western culture. We love to wrap big words around cognitive information.

But I want to actually know him. I want to be held by Jesus. I want to walk with Jesus as they did on the Emmaus Road. I want to know, you know, what makes him laugh. God chose to be embodied in incarnate form. You know, he's not, as some would say in our culture, an existential construct. Jesus was a historical figure, perfectly God and perfectly man.

So as you just said, he's an empathetic high priest. He knows what we're going through. He's been through what we've gone through. He's been abandoned. He's been disappointed. He's been tired. He's been hungry. All the things that we struggle with, he's already borne that.

And so to know him as my empathetic, not just high priest, but he's a lover of my soul. He's my best friend. Missy and I were driving home from her school. This was almost a year ago. And she had her first crush.

And so she got in the car, Shannon, just, you know, it was like there was a balloon inside her that was about to pop, you know, when they're just so excited. And she jumped in the car and I mean, just could not stop talking about this young man who had captured her affection. And of course he was completely oblivious to the fact, you know, that this darling sixth grade girl from Haiti had a crush on him. So he, you could tell when he walked out, he didn't know it, but she noticed everything.

everything about him, the color of socks, what was in his lunchbox, the accent he had when he talked, you know, asked your question in math class. I mean, she's just telling me all this in this torrent of enthusiastic kind of a preoccupation. And I remember looking at her and I thought, I remember when I used to feel like that about Jesus.

And I used to just be so undone by Jesus. I wanted to know more and more and more about him. And as a stumbling scholar, I've been studying God's word for a long time. Scholar is too strong a word. But as a woman who's spent a lot of time in God's word, I thought sometimes I think I

I miss just being with them. And I thought, okay, Jesus, I know you as my king. I want to date you. Like I want to know, I want to know everything about you that I don't know yet. I want to learn new things about you. I want to be so preoccupied about you that I'm about to pop just like my little girl is about her first crush.

And so I'm a very mediocre writer. I'm not nearly as gifted as you. Not true. Don't believe it, people. Fake news. I only speak the truth on the King and Queen Reams podcast. But they were really gracious, my publisher, and they said, you can write a book that just is all about Jesus. And you have written about books of the Bible and, of course, the character of Jesus and the parables of Jesus and all these other things. But I spent almost a year just doing

diving into everything we can find out through His Word, through these eyewitness experiences in the Gospels, and through Holy Spirit. I spent a lot of time just hiking and praying and thinking.

And he showed me some things that even after walking with Jesus for almost 50 years now, they were fresh to me. And I find myself more in love with him now than ever before. And I'm a little better about leaning into his arms. I'm still more comfortable as a dutiful child now.

been a child who launches myself into his lap you know and and leans in and expects to be held I'm learning that that's not that's not my um that's not my default setting my my default setting is even though I talk about grace I tend to I tend to work hard I'm learning to to just believe that

That when he looks at me, his face splits into a grin and he's delighted in me. Even on my worst days, he is for me. That's a lot of the stuff I'm learning. I love that. I've just been talking with Max Lucado about this too. He's such an encouraging guy. Isn't he the best? He is. He's so nice.

He's the nicest. Yeah, he is. But we're talking about how... Speaking of songs, why haven't you started a band? Well, you and I can talk about that when this podcast is over. Listen, if you will be the lead singer, I will wear leather pants and squeak as I dance behind you. We're going to have to have like a drummer and a bassist probably. I play a little bit of keyboard, but every rehearsal will involve queso and chips.

Absolutely. And belly laughter. So we will. I'm in. I don't know if we can top priority. I think that's good. I don't. Should we make it priority? I don't think it would take much. No, I think I think we're called the brain babes, I think. I don't know. But listen, we'll ask Max Lucado if he wants to be in it, too. I think he plays the guitar or something, doesn't he?

I don't think there's anything Max can't do. I know. And it would trick him into a drummer and guitarist and harmonica guy at the same time. He would trick him into hanging out with us. He'd be forced to. He's joining the band. But I've just been talking to him about this idea that, yes, we can often believe like grace is for everybody else and God loves everybody else. But he's really kind of looking at me sort of side eye, like, you know, get your act together kind of thing.

But so many people in the Bible that you and I have written about that Max writes about were completely a mess and flaw to make terrible decisions. And God redeemed that. You know, like you look at the first go around where,

with the disciples who were such a motley crew, but at that, you know, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 men, which of course would have been 15,000 if you counted the women and children. And remember how the disciples said, how in the world are you going to feed this many people with one little boy's box lunch?

But what a lot of us miss is there's a second miraculous feeding. So the 12 have witnessed Jesus, you know, all that food being multiplied. They've witnessed the miracle. When it happens the second time, they

asked the same question. They go, how? And I'm like, oh, I'm so glad he included all these stories of morons in biblical narrative, because if they had all been the pretty perky people who never mess up, I just, golly, I'd be so intimidated. But the fact that our God chose to weave in all these stories about people, yeah, they messed up.

And it wasn't about their deservedness that caused God to delight in him. He delighted in him because that's who he is. He has decided before the beginning of humanity that we're his, that he will always have a seat at the table for us, that he will always show up for us, that he's for us. Even some of those passages in the Old Testament that look like he's a unibrowed librarian waiting to smack us over the head with a Bible. Mm-hmm.

If you look at the historical context, you'll find, oh, wow, he's always been compassionate. He's always been for us. It's just sometimes with our finite human minds, it's hard to see.

We can't get it. I mean, what did he tell us? He says, I'm gentle and lowly. When he was asked about how do you describe yourself? Who are you? And we see his interactions with people who were on the fringe, who were sinners, the woman caught in adultery, you know, when everybody's forced to put down their stones and not stoner, when Jesus says, okay, first person without sin, you cast the first stone. And one by one, they laid them down and walk them away. Right.

He doesn't give her a full pass. He's like, go and sin no more. But I don't condemn you. No one's here is left to condemn you. He's here to redeem us. And, you know, over and over again. And Shannon, you've written so beautifully about this. But when the story could have been over, you know, when Bartimaeus is healed of his blindness, story could have been over. Jesus continues to engage with him. The woman who had the issue of blood, who touched the hem of his garment, she's healed now.

And it says, you know, she's scared. It says she's trembling probably because she's afraid somebody in that religious crowd is going to point out the fact that she's the bloody chick who's not supposed to be in community. Not even supposed to be there, much less reach out to this rabbi. Right. You know, she's broken ceremonial law. She's not allowed to touch. She's touched the hem of his garment. A tassel is what it means in the Greek. Right.

And it says she's healed. But then Jesus stops and it says she was struggling for 12 years. She's scared. There had to be something in the countenance of the Christ that said to her with nonverbal communication,

Tell me what you're still feeling. Because it says after she was trembling, Jesus stops. And then it says she told him the whole truth. In other words, 12 years of feeling alone and isolated, ostracized and dirty. She's already physically healed. Jesus is on his way to Jairus' house, who's a big shot. You know, he lives in a gated community, drives a Bentley. But instead of going on to seemingly the more important person in the more important place,

He stops, and I can't imagine how long it told her to tell the stories of 12 years of loneliness. Lord have mercy. That would take me a couple of weeks. And it says Jesus listened to the whole story. Again, she's already physically healed. He could have just said, ma'am, I'm sorry. I don't have time for this. You're healed. I gots to go.

Yeah. There's a WWJD table across the corner. Get you a bracelet. Right. And move on. Get you some merch. Yes. Yes. Yes.

But instead he engages with her. And then when she finishes all of that, surely saga of feeling like nobody sees me. Nobody cares for me. I'm invisible. I'm unwanted. I don't have any value. He calls her daughter in front of the very crowd who has ostracized her. He doesn't just heal her body. He heals her heart. He's so kind. And I think sometimes we're so afraid of somebody looking under the hood of our life.

and seeing that we don't have it all together, that we're not quite honest enough

to take off our emotional spanks and bring all of ourselves to Jesus, you know, not curate our emotions and try to come before him as like the good kids who have it all together, but to actually just go, here's all my stuff, Jesus. Here's the stuff I still struggle with. And the firm belief that he's not disappointed, that he loves us and he will continue to be in the process of restoring the places where we still ache, where we're still broken.

Well, this is just scratching the surface, but I want you all to check out Lisa's new book. I'm going to read the full title again, just so they don't mistake it with any other books that they might run across. Jesus, a scandalously devoted, conspicuously uncool, super transparent homage to who our Savior is and how much He loves us. It's a devotional that will walk you through all kinds of things.

Some of the chapters are Jesus is a truth teller. He's excessively affectionate. There's something about a time machine in here, too. And you're going to have to read the book to find out about that. Lisa, remind us where people can listen and find you and read you and your books and everything else, the podcast and all of it. Thank you so much, Shannon. It's just Lisa Harper, kind of wherever you get your books. We've got a podcast called Back Porch Theology where we have some just amazing

amazing theologians and scholars who put the cookies on the lower shelf. And so it's a Lisa Harper.net is, I don't remember what my social media is. I think it's Lisa D Harper, but I know there is a website, Lisa Harper.net, but it's wherever you get, get books. And then the podcast you can find anywhere you listen to podcasts. So, so put us on,

fourth or fifth or sixth on your list behind Shannon Green. No, no, no. You will learn a lot if you hang out with Lisa, especially Back Porch Theology. Hopefully they're going to learn how well you sing and how horribly I dance. Well, here's the thing. We will also have fun because you've got experience with costume design.

from your roller skating days. I'll throw in some pageant wear. And people-- You've got an old Bible teacher who rides a motorcycle and wears squeaky leather pants. I mean, at least it's interesting. You can have a good time. Yes.

Okay, listen, I will be responsible for the queso. And next time we get together in Nashville, we'll go do some of that. And you can check my social media for the tour dates and times for Priority 2.0. Priority.the modern version. Exactly.

Lisa, thank you so much. God bless you. I love your heart. I love your kindness. I love your authenticity. I'm so grateful to have gotten to hang out with you, even though we didn't get to share a case. So I can't wait. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Janice Dean, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean Podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.