“JESUS,” Suffering, and Motorcycles: A Conversation with Lisa Harper

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time Spiritual Conversations: For, With, and About Women. I'm your host, Twanna Henderson. And as always, I want to remind you to like this broadcast, and to definitely share it with someone in your life.

Well, I am so excited to share today's guest with you. Our guest is Lisa Harper. Lisa is an engaging, hilarious communicator, as well as an authentic and substantive Bible teacher that many enjoy hearing in person or on countless TV and radio platforms. She holds a Master of theological studies from Covenant Seminary and a doctorate in progress at Denver Seminary. She's been in vocational ministry for 30 years, and has written numerous books and Bible study curriculum. Lisa says her greatest accomplishment by far is becoming the mom unto her daughter Missy, who she adopted from Haiti. Her latest devotional "JESUS" also just hit the shelves in September. Some refer to Lisa as a hilarious storyteller and others refer to her as a theological scholar, but she is consistently known as a compelling communicator who deeply loves Jesus. Lisa, welcome to T Time.

Lisa Harper: Oh, thank you so much for having me. You know, you left something out in that bio. You didn't tell anybody that I was a hot mess. So really, that should be the canopy over all of those places, things you said is I'm just a hot hot mess.

Twanna Henderson: Well, everything that I've read and what I'm looking at now, I don't see a hot mess. So I don't know anything about that part, so...

Lisa Harper: It's, listen, it's woven through everything that you know, that's the thing is, that's the Gospel is we can't make it by ourselves. We need Jesus. And even after all these years of walking with Jesus and having the undeserved privilege of being in vocational ministry, I am consistently amazed by his kindness.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: Because I still make some of the same mistakes. And he is even in his discipline, he's merciful.

Twanna Henderson: Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, he is such a good God. And, you know, and I know, that's probably why you wrote this devotional on Jesus.

Lisa Harper: I did.

Twanna Henderson: Because then you're just, you know, you're just kind of this every woman. I told you, you're like, just every woman: Bible teacher, speaker, writer, motorcycle rider.

Lisa Harper: That's right. That's right.

Twanna Henderson: So you've written like over a fifth? Is it like 15 books that you've published?

Lisa Harper: I think so. I don't keep up with all of them. And some of them are really mediocre, Twanna, but I think so. I think this is 15.

Twanna Henderson: Well, I believe that, you know, with the new devotional, “Jesus”, I want you to give us the subtitle of that.

Lisa Harper: Oh, goodness, the subtitle. You know, my publisher is so gracious that and usually I'm not that smart with titles. They usually, you know, somebody, some brilliant person in marketing makes it up. But this one I just said, I really want to keep this title. So like you said, the title of the book is "JESUS", which is pretty clear. But the subtitle is where you see the hot mess in me. The subtitle is: "A Scandalously Devoted, Conspicuously Uncool, Super Transparent Homage to Who Our Savior Is and How Much He Loves.”

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness.

Lisa Harper: So that also illustrates the fact that I'm a windbag, Twanna.. Concise is not my gift.

Twanna Henderson: Well, I love that. That is so amazing. And definitely just something that will just kind of catch our attention for sure. Now I know your first devotional was titled "Life”. What ways can readers expect this devotional, "Jesus," to be different from your first one?

Lisa Harper: In "Life," I took the entirety of Scripture, and we talked about all kinds of things: high seasons, low seasons, our hopes, our dreams, and of course, everything was rooted in what God says in His word and how he calls us to live as Christ followers. Even when we're just stumbling toward him. "Jesus," I'll tell you that the catalyst of this book. My little girl is in the seventh grade. Last year when she was in the sixth grade, I picked her up from school one day, and she got in the car and, Twanna, her face. It was like it was backlit with joy. And she started telling me about this little boy, whom  she had developed a deep crush on.

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness.

Lisa Harper: And I mean, in five or six minutes after I picked her up from school, she had told me almost breathlessly about what he had worn to school, what his socks were, what color his socks were, what his voice sounded like in math class, what he had in his lunch bag. I mean, she just was so animated telling me about every detail of this young man's life. And watching my little girl's face as she talked about this boy she had a crush, and of course he was completely oblivious. I thought I remember when I used to look like that and talk like that about Jesus.

Twanna Henderson: Mmmm.

Lisa Harper: I remember being so absolutely preoccupied with Jesus that He was the first thing on my mind when I got up in the morning. And I thought, you know, I've been walking with him for over 50 years now. I just turned 60. And the glorious thing about being this old isn't just the discounts at fast food restaurants. It's that I can look back, you know, over a lifetime of walking with Jesus, and I can just tell you, "Oh, he just gets better." He's so faithful. He has dug me out of and pulled me out of every pit I've dug myself. He's such a good God. But I thought I want to know more about him. Even though I've spent eight years in grad school studying God and His Word, I want to know what makes Jesus belly laugh. I want to know more facets of who he is as our redeemer, and who he was as our incarnate savior. I just want to be undone by Jesus all over again. I'm always studying and as you said, I'm trying to wrap up a doctorate, so I've usually got my nose in a book if I'm not laughing with Missy or on a motorcycle. But, I thought I want to really hone in on just Jesus. And so I spent about a year in the Gospels just really marinating in the life of Christ. And I came away some with some things I didn't know before, some things where I went "ah wowzers." And so I was just, I fell more in love with Jesus, getting to write this little devotional.

Twanna Henderson: Well I'll tell you, Lisa, if I've got to spend eight years in grad school to get to know him, I'm not gonna get to know.

Lisa Harper: You know, I'm a slow learner. I need more help the most. You know, the reason I went to seminary in the first place was I worked for a big ministry way back when I was in my 20s and 30s. And so I had just the absolute undeserved privilege of the platform simply because this ministry, lot of people knew this ministry. I was just this wet behind the ears, kid. And I remember one day standing on a stage with a microphone, and a stadium with almost 20,000 women.

Twanna Henderson: Mhmm.

Lisa Harper: And I can remember almost distinctly what I thought in that moment, I thought, "oh, goodness, gracious Lord. These women are leaning forward trusting me." And I know I'm a heretic at some point. I don't mean to be. But when you filter the mind of God, through our minds and mouths, it's going to be distorted at some level. So I thought, I just want to be responsible.  I want to understand more. The Bible, this love story we call the Bible. And so I thought, well, best place we can know God more is through revelation of Holy Spirit, and holy read God's word. So I thought, I need some help. And that's what started me on the seminary journey. You don't have to go to seminary to know Jesus. I just wanted to be a little more responsible as a Bible teacher. And I mean, I have, I don't love all academic papers, but I love to learn.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, well, I got a little bit under my background, but not eight years. But I want to go back to your daughter Missy, because I know that she's near and dear to you. And she actually plays a key role in a lot of the anecdotal content of your book. Share with us how her heart is really woven into this devotional.

Lisa Harper: Well, Missy is, she's not my hope. Jesus is my hope. But Missy is tangible joy. I became a mom through the miracle of adoption the year I turned 50. So I was, like I said, a very slow learner. I was really broken in my 20s and 30s. I was very drawn to abusive men. And so God protected me from the guys I was most attracted to. And then the few good godly guys I dated, God protected them from me, because I was just really, really messed up relationally. And God began to, of course, graciously and faithfully pull those, those deep wounds of toxicity out of my heart and mind. And I'm not saying I'm fixed, but He has redeemed so much of the baggage in my life. But by the time I got to a place where I think I was really healthy, relationally I realized, "oh, my goodness, it's too late for me to have biological children." And I won't go into the whole story. It's a long story, but it is pure redemption, that I got to become Missy's Mom after her first mom died in Haiti when Missy was just a baby. And so she's tangible grace. You know, I just see God's grace every time I look in my kid's face, and Missy has this real purity in the way she loves Jesus. And so yeah, she's in a lot of the stories I tell. I'm definitely a storyteller. I think sometimes it helps us get to the story of Scripture. To talk about the stories of life and how relevant the Bible is. It's not a textbook or rule book at its core. It's a love story. And so yeah, Missy is on a lot of the pages of this devotional.

Twanna Henderson: Well, you know, I think that's probably going to be, or that should be your next book or another book, because it sounds like there's a story there that definitely needs to be told, and would be so helpful.

Lisa Harper: Absolutely.

Twanna Henderson: I know you said you share that you've been a Christ follower for over 50 years, which is amazing. How has this devotional specifically challenged Lisa, in her walk?

Lisa Harper: Jesus is, the more we look at Jesus, the more compelling he is. As our Redeemer and, and there are times in my life as a Christ follower, that I still get so preoccupied by just the circumstances, the busyness of life. I find myself almost in this rote relationship where I'm reading my Bible, I'm trying to do what what God calls us to do as as His Beloved. But sometimes just life can almost cause me to forget that He's my first.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: That apart from an intimate relationship with Jesus, I've got no real peace and no real joy. Missy is not the genesis or the source of my joy. Jesus is. And so, really focusing on him, being intentional about focusing on Jesus, you know, he's not a proposition to be studied. He's not verses to be memorized. He's not Bible study blanks to fill out. He is a person with whom we engage.

Twanna Henderson: Mhmm.

Lisa Harper: And so I felt like I was re-gospeled. Through the study, I just, I found myself leaning a little more fully into his arms. And there were things about his character like, Twanna, I didn't know as much as I've studied. I didn't know that the first person in biblical narrative to actually profess the deity of Jesus, the first one to say, "truly, truly, you are the Son of God," wasn't the disciples. They were pretty confused. They didn't get it all. It wasn't really until after the crucifixion and resurrection, that that some of the reality of his his deity really began to settle over their hearts and minds. It was the Centurion. It was a Roman soldier at the crucifixion. He's the first one who, in Greek, professed, you are the Son of God. He didn't grow up with Torah. He actually grew up in violence. And he didn't see Jesus perform miracles. He didn't see him hug lepers. All he saw was Jesus suffer.

Twanna Henderson: Wow.

Lisa Harper: His first encounter with Jesus was Jesus hanging on the cross. And you think "Goodness gracious, how profound is that. That the way our Savior died, was so compelling that it caused this violent military man to say that, that man right there, hanging on that rugged cross, 'He is the Son of God.'" And so I thought, wow, what do I not know about the suffering of Christ? You know, what do I not understand that the joy set before him and that's us. That's you and I. The joy set before him compelled him to not only step into the crucifixion, but to know that God was going to turn his back on him. And so there's just, I love everything about Jesus.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: I love that he hugged messy kids, and then looked at his followers and said, y'all need to be like this. Y'all need to take off your spiritual spanks and come before me with all that you are. You know, I love messy, sticky kids. I love that He trusted in Peter even after Peter fumbled the ball on the first yard line. I love his compassion. I love the fact that it came from his gut.

Twanna Henderson: Uh huh.

Lisa Harper: But in the Greek, it defines his compassionate, "splagchnizomai," from the gut of God. It wasn't a superficial, it wasn't a rigid, it wasn't a stiff, kind of a grace. It was, it was a messy gut-level grace. I love every thing about Jesus. And the more I lean into him, the more I study him through what God's Word says about him, these eyewitness accounts in the Gospels. I just, I'm just more grateful. I don't do too many things well, Twanna. What I feel like I do well is gratitude.

Twanna Henderson: Mmhmm. That's awesome. That is really major because, you know, a lot of times we miss that. We miss that piece. And so, yeah, that says a lot about you, Lisa. Because we do miss that gratitude piece a lot. And it's so important to get that and, and even with the whole suffering, you know, I think we're more like Jesus when we're suffering. I mean, none of us likes to do it. But I think we're, you know, we've got the raining part down, but it's the suffering part that we don't want to do.

Lisa Harper: Amen. I was with Kirk Thompson, who you probably know, just brilliant Christian psychiatrist, a couple of weeks ago, and he talked about the theological connection and the physiological, our neuro pathways, the connection between suffering and hope. And he said, you know, even Christians tend to think those are opposite ends of the continuum, but in biblical narrative in the life of Christ, suffering and hope are right there, together, and you're right, I think we want to focus on the happy clappy emotions.

Twanna Henderson: Mhmm.

Lisa Harper: But that's actually not biblically defensible, you know, half of the Psalms are psalms of lament. The the question that's asked the most often in the Bible is "how much longer oh lord do we have to walk through this." And I'm not trying to be morose, or say life is always sad. But Jesus didn't punk us on that.

Twanna Henderson: Right.

Lisa Harper: He said, “In this world, you will have trouble.” He said, “Take heart”.

Twanna Henderson: Mhmm.

Lisa Harper: “I've overcome the world.” But sadness is part of our sojourn, as Christians because we're aliens and strangers here.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: And I also think when we're honest about that actually he takes the lid off our joy. You know, when I learned to trust Jesus in the dark, it actually multiplied my joy.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: It didn't put a lid over my joy. I actually became more joyful, because I stopped being afraid of hard things.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, well, you know, life can come at us really fast and can cause us to not sense Jesus as we once did. What message would you give to someone who feels disconnected from the personhood of Jesus or someone who has really lost their awe of Jesus?

Lisa Harper: I'd say simply pray for the grace to just take one step back toward him today. You don't have to understand the Greek and Hebrew. You don't have to say any big fancy theological words. Just simply pray: "God, if You're real, would you reveal Yourself to me? And give me the grace to take one step toward Jesus?" If you study the Gospels, you'll find that Jesus is always compassionate.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: He's a good God.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: Even when he was dressing down the Pharisees for being such jerks and posing as religious leaders, but not having a relationship with God and not being kind toward other people. There was still mercy in the way he, he confronted them. He was still kind. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He let Nicodemus come to him at night, because he knew he was afraid that he'd get stink eye if he came during the day, because people would think he wasn't being a good Pharisee. Our God is so kind. We do ourselves such a disfavor when we imagine God is as unibrowed, as angry, as punitive, is looking to us with disapproval. He's looking at us with a love that is higher and wider than anything we can hope for.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: So if you would just if you're struggling, if you don't feel like you're close to Jesus, right, now, imagine his countenance, and he was God incarnate. So don't just think of him as this ethereal being. He sits at the right hand of God the Father right now, but he was in the flesh. He let us touch him. He most often used his hands to heal. So imagine the countenance of the Christ smiling at you with absolute compassion. He's not mad at you. He's not disappointed at you. And over and over and over again in the Gospels, when someone felt dirty, not good enough, far away from God. What Jesus said to all of them was come.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: Come closer.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: Move toward me.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. That is so true. I know that the devotional is a 60 day devotional, and I really like day 35, which is "Jesus as a Go Big or Go Home Kind of Warrior." Which of the 60 days do you feel resonates with you the most?

Lisa Harper: Yes, such a good question to want to ask. That's like asking me what carb is my favorite. I like them all. It's because every single devotional is rooted in Scripture. So you've always got a passage or a story from scripture, we're unpacking. It depends on where I am. You know, some days when I wake up, and I think, "Lord, I need grace just To swing my legs out of bed, you know, I feel like I'm at the end of my rope today," then that tends to be one of those stories from scripture where you see the compassion of Christ where he's saying, "Come to me all, you who are weary and heavy laden," and he doesn't say, "I'll show you how to get your rear end in gear." He doesn't say, "I'll show you how to walk out an acrostic from Bible." He says, "I'll give you rest. You'll find your rest and me." And so, on the days when I just almost out of gas, those are the passages I ran to. On the days when I'm being a stinker, and not exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, those are the days when I need fierce Jesus.

Twanna Henderson: Mhmm.

Lisa Harper: I need him to say, "Hey, honey, you need to you need to turn back toward me."

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: "You're walking in ways that are not the ways I've given you. So come walk back in my promises." I need kind of a, a holy spanking, if you will. I'll be braided with mercy. So that's the thing I love about Scripture, Twanna, is it's not one note.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: You've got everything we need for life and godliness in God's word. So I tend to love every single passage. So I trust that whatever I need for the day, God is going to give me and here's the deal: if you don't like the day you're on in this devotional, you don't have to do it 60 days concurrent. Skip over some part you don't like. Get to a part you do like. This is definitely not formal, as you can tell by the subtitle.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. Who do you hope will pick up this book and what do you hope they'll learn from it?

Lisa Harper: I hope the biggest takeaway is that Jesus sees you. And he loves you.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: He is an accessible savior. He's not a far away, dispassionate God. He's an up close, personal Savior. And you don't have to clean yourself up before you come to him. Come to him messy.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: Don't worry about wearing emotional Spanx with Jesus. Come to him with all that you are. It's in the moving toward Jesus that we get holy.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: It's in the moving toward Jesus that we become crystal format. We begin to be shaped like Jesus. So I hope people who already love Jesus will pick it up. And I really hope though, they'll give this little devotional to people who don't yet know the love of Jesus. Or like you said, Twanna, people who are in a place where they're discouraged.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Lisa Harper: Maybe they feel far from the love of God. Maybe they're not going to church because they're too afraid they'll get judged if they go there. Somebody's gonna throw shade because they haven't been walking right. Maybe they feel like everybody knows. I hope friends of God will give this book to people who don't think how in the world. You know, they're like, they don't think a God like that could love a girl like me. Because I think if you really look at the stories of Christ in Scripture, you'll find that you don't have to have it all together to be loved by Jesus. He loves outliers and outcasts and those of us who who struggle and bumble in our walk of faith. He is a compassionate, Redeemer.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. And we can't pull it together anyway. Even if we tried, we can't pull together anyway.

Lisa Harper: If I look like I have it together, I'm posing or using a really good filter.

Twanna Henderson: I know. Well, you know, we could go on and on and on. I wish we could. How can listeners connect with you? And where can they find ir pick up a copy of this book?

Lisa Harper: Oh, thank you. Well, you can go anywhere online. It's available, you know, on christianbook.com. It's available on Amazon. Anywhere online. They can get this devotional "Jesus." And then my socials are Lisa D. Harper. And then I have a website that's lisaharper.org. It's, anyway, if you just Google Lisa Harper Bible teacher, it'll come up. And then we've got a podcast that is so fun, Twanna, because I have one of my mentor professors from seminary. So he is awesome. He puts theological cookies on the lower shelf, so everybody can enjoy them. And it's called "Back Porch Theology."

Twanna Henderson: Oh, great. Yeah, your website is lisaharper.org.

Lisa Harper: Thank you. Thank you.

Twanna Henderson: So as we close, and this has been so great. I know that we have listeners who are at various stages in their walk of faith. But the common thread is that all of us want to know more and more about Jesus.

Lisa Harper: Yes. Yes.

Twanna Henderson: Can you just take a moment and pray that our listeners will lean into the outstretched arms of Jesus, and that we'll make him the center of our lives?

Lisa Harper: Yes. Thank you. I'd love to. Father, Son, Father, God and Holy Spirit, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you that you exist in perfect relationship among yourself. And you've made us in your image. You hardwired us for relationship. Jesus, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you that you've created a way for us to be in relationship with our holy Heavenly Father. Thank you that you pursue us. Thank you that you promise that if we seek you, you will be found by us. And God, thank you for that promise in the Old Testament, where you tell us you are so compassionate, that you even reveal yourself to people who aren't looking for you. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you that you're not only a perfect, holy transcendent God, you choose to be an up close, eminent, accessible God. Jesus, thank you. Thank you. Thank you that you give us the grace to even take one tiny step toward you. And that's what we would ask by the authority of your name Jesus today. That you'd give us the grace to move toward you today. We pray that for saints like Twanna who've been walking with you for a long time, and for somebody who's listening to this conversation, who's thinking, "Oh, I thought I had to have it all together to have a relationship with Jesus." Oh, Lord Jesus through Your Holy Spirit, I pray that you would whisper to them in a way they can hear it loud today. Honey, you don't have to have it all together. Just move towards Jesus. He's waiting for you with open arms. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. We love you. We need you. We can't make it without you. We ask these things by the power and authority of your name King Jesus, and by the authority of the blood you already shed on the cross to justify us because you chose to love us before we even existed. Help us to rest in that reality today. Amen and amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. Amen. Well, Lisa, thank you so much. And thank you for just being the gift that you are to the body of Christ.

Lisa Harper: Right back atcha, Twanna. I look forward to meeting you face to face.

Twanna Henderson: Absolutely.

Lisa Harper: And have a hug.

Twanna Henderson: I cannot wait and, to all of our listeners, thank you for joining us today. I'm Twanna Henderson. Be blessed of the Lord.