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How Well Do You Know Jesus – Better Questions, Better Relationship With Jesus

Jason Koeppe — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 06:18:29 +0000

“Why me?”

You hear people ask questions like this all the time. Or…

“What did I do to deserve this?”

Maybe you’re even one of them? I know I used to be and still lapse back into THINKING this type of thing every now and then when things get really tough. But after reading a book by Andy Andrews called The Traveler’s Gift and digging into the Word a bit deeper, I’m convinced that the questions we ask ourselves not only set us up for failure or success in any given situation, but they also point to how we view and understand our relationship with God. Let me explain by giving you some examples from scripture.

Our Questions Reveal How Well We Know Jesus

When Philip asked Jesus, “show us the Father…” Jesus replied…

“Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
(John 14:9)

See how Phillip didn’t fully understand WHO Jesus was and what His relationship to the Father was? Jesus goes so far as to ask him “Don’t you know me, Phillip?”. On the surface that seems pretty harsh, but even illustrates this further with “even after I have been among you such a long time?”. While grace abounds, it’s clear Phillip asked the wrong question here based on Jesus’ response.

So does God expect us to know everything? Nope. That’s grace in action. But knowing Jesus as well as is possible is the point. Heaven and eternal life is not the point. Eternal life with Jesus is the point. Oh how I hope I’m wrong with what I’m about ready to say, but say it I will. I fear so many people have said a prayer, started going to church, serving, singing and tithing thinking they are all set. But while all those things are good, if done without seeking to make Jesus the all consuming passion and joy of your life, I fear some of them may be the ones he says “I never knew you” to. I can’t think of anything more awful than hearing those words on that day and nothing better than “Well done good and faithful servant”.

Let’s look at some more examples.

Consider the woman at the well.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:9-14)

This is such a beautiful picture of so many wonderful things and so much can be said about this passage of scripture, but let’s focus on the questions. She asks Jesus “How can you ask me for a drink?” thinking why in the world is this teacher even talking to me. Jesus says [paraphrased] “If you knew who I was, you’d be asking me for eternal life”. So let’s pause right there. Jesus says “if you knew…who it is that asks you for a drink…”.

Do you see it? She’s got the same problem that Phillip had but with a better excuse. She doesn’t know who she’s talking to. But notice, even though she’s still not clued in, her questions get a bit better cause she starts asking about who she’s talking to (in the “are you greater than our father Jacob” part).

Our Brains & Questions

Your brain is amazing. And it’s because it’s so amazing that it does some slightly peculiar things. One of those things is racing ahead and trying to constantly serve up answers to questions you ask or someone asks you. But sometimes our brains can get stuck in a rut. To illustrate this, try this easy test suggested in 101 Ways To Generate Great Ideas, Timothy R.V. Foster:

What do you call a funny story? – joke

What are you when you have no money? – broke

What’s another word for Coca Cola? – Coke

What’s the white of an egg? ——————–

So this is an easy one right? Well it is if you said albumen. It isn’t yolk, it’s albumen. Were you tricked? Most people are. The brain likes to race ahead, because it THINKS it already knows the answer. You see your brain will always try to answer the question you ask it…even when the answer it serves up is wrong.

So when you ask self defeating or God limiting or earthly prospective (vs heavenly perspective) based questions like “why me”, you’re brain is going to work hard to serve up an answer. But if it’s the wrong question to ask in the first place (and as a christian it most certainly is because of our knowledge of God), your soul, mind and heart don’t really WANT an answer to THAT question. As a matter of fact, in general, they take your focus completely off God and put it squarely where it doesn’t belong…which is onto you.

Peter asked Jesus in John 21:21 “Lord what about him” in reference to how another disciple would die based on Jesus, one verse earlier, telling Peter how he was going to die. His focus was completely on himself and not on Jesus and His perfect plan. By the way, in the next verse Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

How much better it would be if we set our brains on a quest to answer a question with a heavenly perspective…such as, “Lord is there something I need to learn from this”, or “Lord, can you teach me how to make you my all consuming joy and passion in life”? The brain would be on a quest to find the answer to empowering questions that bring life. See the difference?

Pilate asked Jesus what is truth when “it” (Jesus) was standing right in front of him. The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” Martin Luther King, Jr.

So instead of asking the self defeating or God limiting questions like “Why me?”, train yourself to begin asking “Why NOT me? Adversity is preparation for greatness”. Just remember that when you ask Jesus a question His focus is on you fulfilling His purposes and will not your own. As we live our daily lives as believers I pray your focus and mission would become one with His for your life. Then and only then will we truly live.

Finding God In Tough Times – 7 Biblical Facts To Lean On When Things Get Tough

Jason Koeppe — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:35:34 +0000

God is all powerful, all knowing, all encompassing.
Nothing gets by Him, nothing surprises Him and nothing catches Him off guard. While there are things that disappoint Him, we must never forget even when He’s disappointed, He’s not surprised.
He is Creator God.
He created the heavens and the earth which we call the universe and everything on it, in it and around it…put simply, He created EVERYTHING.
He loves every single person He created.
He knows them intimately even to the cells of their body and the hairs on their head being numbered. That includes us. He loves us more than we love ourselves or even more than we love our own children. He loves our children more than we love them. His love is unimaginable. We should reflect that love to others. In doing so, we fulfill what we were put here to do; glorify His name by making Jesus our all consuming passion.
He wants the best for us.
This is a natural outpouring of number 3. He isn’t always going to make our paths easy (in this world you will have trouble), but he will make them straight (Proverbs 3: 5-6; but make sure you read what your/our part is in that one…it’s critical). Another even clearer scripture is this one: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” – Jeremiah 29:11 Make no mistake the Lord loves us and wants the best for us even when we can’t see it. Our problem is how we define “best”. We think of best in earthly perspective; money, health, fame, riches, happiness because of our circumstances. God defines best as how much glory your life, even in and through your suffering at times, brings Him. In other words, the best He can give us is Him and when your happiness comes from Him DESPITE your circumstances.
We have a part to play.
Sometimes I think Christians fall into the temptation of thinking that all they have to do to be in good standing with God (and be an effective Christian) is avoid sin, go to church and tithe. I know I have before and still struggle sometimes with feeling vindicated or good enough or entitled. But the question is What does God require? Hopefully you’ve read Worship by Joseph Garlington that I recommended a while back, but if not, I HIGHLY suggest you get it and read it. In the beginning he reminds us of an old testament scripture where God told the people; no worship, no rain. I’ve quoted this several times on stage. There are conditions sometimes for provision. I think sometimes we forget that about God. Don’t misunderstand me, we could never EARN our way into heaven that’s what being saved by Grace is about and we should all be thankful for that one. BUT, we should ask…What Does God Require? We should all be asking ourselves that question every day. For that day, for that situation, for that hour, for that time, for our lives, for our family, for our church, for our team, for our FILL IN THE BLANK HERE.
He is God, we aren’t.
Sometimes as believers, we seem to outgrow our “britches” as my grandma used to say. See, our kids don’t always know why we’re having them do something or endure something or wait for something or go through something, but we’d NEVER hurt them or subject them to pain unnecessarily. Neither would He and even more so. And finally…
Is my focus on the earthly aspect or heavenly aspect?
It’s good to refocus and re-align every now and then and especially at cross roads like you find yourself and I find ourselves in at times. But always, all the time, in all ways, in every situation, with every person, our focus should be sooner rather than later the heavenly aspects of the thing. The question I always ask here is God what do you want me to learn here? What do you want me to see here and how can I affect the Kingdom positively in this thing.

Do We Love Our Life Too Much?

Jason Koeppe — Sun, 16 May 2010 07:06:14 +0000

I used to fear the return of Christ.

Then, at some point later in my walk, the fear of His return turned into resistance for lack of a better word. In other words, I had (and have) a great life here on Earth and so while I would have told you I loved Jesus dearly (more on that a bit later), I wasn’t quite ready for Him to come back.

Looking back, I do believe that a large part of it was that I wasn’t well versed in scripture and had always heard about all the “bad stuff” in the book of Revelation. So I figured there would be a lot of “bad” before we got to the “good” of Jesus returning. However, this lack of biblical understanding and being infant in my faith so to speak wasn’t the only factor. I now believe I suffered from then an addiction of sorts. An addiction to “the good life” here on earth I had built for myself.

This is going to be a short post and as such, let me throw out some tough scriptures that the Lord is allowing me to chew on these days. Scriptures that I’ve both read and heard HUNDREDS of times before now, but somehow I’m just now recognizing a HUGE blind spot in my life up until now. Let me openly confess that I have asked God to forgive me for any willful disobedience to His word and any continued resistance even now as I wrestle out what they mean to me, my family, and how we live.

I want to make sure that no one that reads this blog ever feels any condemnation from me or anything I post and I wanna also remind you all to follow Christ not Jason Koeppe. Scripture is what guides our lives not what some blogger or even a pastor says. HOWEVER, one of the reasons I started this blog was because I felt deep in my spirit that I/we were and are being called to more and that there are, as a result, a LOT of sleeping Christians (not sure that isn’t an oxymoron) who think they’re ok (translate saved and going to heaven) because they prayed a prayer, go to church and tithe.

Anyway, here is the question I pose to you with these scriptures…”What Does the Gospel Demand”?

Luke 9:57-62

Luke 14:33

Matthew 10:37-39

As I walk through and unpack all I can in these and other verses in scripture, I’ll record what God is doing in my life as a result. The question is simple, but the answer might take us places we have never been. Here’s the bottom line…

Do I/YOU believe the Bible?

May God give us ears to hear and eyes to see the truth found in His word. I pray God that I nor anyone who reads these posts would ignore them or willfully disobey them but rather be transformed by them and let it completely change the way we live. More to come…soon.

What Does It Take To Waste Your Life?

Jason Koeppe — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:44:31 +0000

Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper

What kind of life must you live for God to say at the great day of judgment…”you’ve wasted the precious life I’ve given you”?

Better yet, how must you live for YOU to conclude that you’ve wasted your life?

Sound like harsh questions? If so, then you should see what John Piper (and I conclude) thinks is the answer! I found this book several days ago and it’s hitting me like a ton of bricks right now cause I feel like John is saying what I’m not able to put into words as well as he did. I feel like this book is going to be yet another wake up call for me to realize that God is calling me (and you) to a higher standard, a deeper love, a more resolute passion and an unwavering commitment to His Glory.

Do yourself a favor…Christian or not, go download the FREE copy of this book and read it from cover to cover. Don’t forget to subscribe on the right side of this page as we’ll be providing some AWESOME tools, tips, encouragement and resources to help you make sure that you Don’t Waste Your Life!

Don’t Waste Your Life Book

Don’t Waste Your Life Study Guide

Don’t Waste Your Life Sermon

Don’t Waste Your Life Gospel Tract

It’s Crazy…Isn’t It?

Jason Koeppe — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 06:19:50 +0000

I recently heard about a book that seemed to really speak to the heart of what this site is all about. It’s called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I haven’t finished it yet, but I want to share just a small section of content from the back of the book and one quote from the inside. Check this out:

Have you ever felt like we were missing it?

It’s crazy if you think about it. The God of the universe – the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles…galaxies and E-minor – loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what’s our typical response? We go to church, sing some songs and try not to cuss.

Whether you’ve verbalized it yet or not…we all know something’s wrong.

Why are there are over 350,000,000,000 BILLION galaxies…that we know of, most of which the human race has only seen in the last few years due to the Hubble telescope?
Why does a caterpillar have 228 separate muscles in it’s head (that’s a lot for a bug don’t you think)?
The average elm tree has approx 6M leaves on it
Your own heart generates enough pressure to squirt blood up to 30 feet
He didn’t have to put over 3,000 species of trees within 1 sq mile in the Amazon jungle or so many different kinds of laughter (you know…wheezes, snorts, quiet, loud, obnoxious), but he did.
Did you know that spiders, when spinning their web can produce up to 60 ft of silk per hr while simultaneously producing a special oil on their feet so they don’t stick to their own web…that deserves some respect!
When you get goose bumps, the hair in your follicles is actually helping you stay warmer by trapping heat.
Or have you ever marveled at the fact that plants take in Carbon dioxide and produce oxygen?
And those same plants started as a seed in the dirt, some watered some not, that transformed and defied gravity and poked their head/sprout out of the ground and into the sunlight.

The rest of the back cover says…

Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world in tangible, even radical solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of dos and don’ts – it’s falling in love with God. And once you encoutner His love as Francis describes it, you’ll never be the same.

Because when you’re wildly in love with someone…it changes everything.

And here’s a quote from the book:

“Whatever God’s reasons for such diversity, creativity and sophistication in the universe, on earth and in our own bodies the point of it all is His glory.”