Eric Kampmann - Getting to Know Jesus: An Invitation to Walk with the Lord Day by Day

GETTING TO KNOW

JESUS

DAILY ENCOUNTERS WITH THE LORD
FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS ASCENSION

ERICKAMPMANN

Getting to Know Jesus, 2016 Eric Kampmann
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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV.
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I fall back on the response of Bishop Ambrose, mentor of Augustine, who was asked on his deathbed whether he feared facing God at judgment. We have a good Master, Ambrose replied with a smile. I learn to trust God with my doubts and struggles by getting to know Jesus. If that sounds evasive, I suggest it accurately reflects the centrality of Jesus in the New Testament. We start with him as the focal point and let our eyes wander with care into the margins.

By looking at Jesus, I gain insight into how God feels about what goes on down here. Jesus expresses the essence of God in a way that we cannot misconstrue.

Philip Yancey
Reaching for the Invisible God

CHUCK DAVIS

DO NOT REMEMBER how we got started. But there we were, in my son Jordans bedroom, which he had converted into a basic sound studio. Eric and I would read a passage of the Bible from the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Then we would have a three to five minute dialogue expounding on the text from the larger context of the entire Bible. We would complete ten to fifteen recordings per session staying a couple months ahead of the podcast schedule.

Then, one day, Eric revealed to me something that was so ingrained in my methodology that I never really thought about it. What made my message unique was the emphasis on bringing it back to Jesus the Centrality of Christ. This led to our second year of podcasts, Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus.

So what has the process been like for me? Friendship, gratefulness, and renewed commitment.

First, friendship. The recording sessions moved from my sons bedroom to the church basement or my study. We added Scott, a member of our church, as our new recording technician. Our friendship grew. We laughed. We rabbit-trailed. We shared life. We prayed for one another. We grew together as Christ followers around the Word and the life of Jesus.

Second, gratefulness. As Eric would ask me spontaneous and unrehearsed questions on the biblical text, I was amazed at how much of the Word of God was deep inside of me. The Holy Spirit would open files in my mind that had been stored over the past fifty-plus years of being in the text. And it was not just knowledge but heartfelt living of the Word. My gratefulness is rooted in my heritage of being raised in the Word. My parents, my Sunday School teachers, my pastors, my college and seminary professors, and my distant mentors through books, have all instructed me in the Word. And, maybe most importantly, daily reading, study, meditation, and memorization of that Word, almost every day as an adult, has transformed my life. I am sometimes brought to tears in my morning quiet times in appreciation for the life that I have been givenset apart in and unto Jesus and saturated by the Word of God.

Third, renewed commitment. Walking with Eric and knowing his story has reminded me of the power of the Word in itself. Erics testimony points to the power of Gods Word. Without help from all the crutches that I was given, Eric one day picked up a Bible, and through the reading of that Word, was transformed. This is why I daily recommit to the preaching, teaching, and simple witness to the Word of God. Eric is an incarnational reminder to me of the value and outcome of giving my life to this calling and passion.

As the prophet Isaiah declaresas the rain brings forth a harvest, so the Word of God will not return void. Or as the writer of Hebrews declaresfor the Word of God is living and active... able to shape and correct us. Or as Paul reminds, the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit and that all Scripture is God breathed and profitable for transforming us. And especially as Jesus reminded us, people who build their lives on a solid foundation that will not crumble in life storms, are those who not only hear the Word but do it. Those are all my quick paraphrases of favorite declarations of the value of the written Word when experienced through the lens of a relationship with God through the Living Word, Jesus.

May your journey be as rich as mine has been through your discovery of a vibrant relationship to God the Father, through knowing Jesus, and made alive by the Holy Spirit.

ERIC KAMPMANN

I N F EBRUARY 1991, AS I emerged from some very difficult years running my business, I discovered a lectionary in the back of a prayer book. I had been reading in the Bible on a pretty consistent basis during the time of my troubles, but finding a daily reading guide was a very exciting revelation for me. I began using the lectionary on a daily basis and I came to love and depend upon it more and more as time went by. In fact, Getting to Know Jesus would not exist if that lectionary had not been discovered that day. It became foundational for my growing knowledge and passion for the entire Bible and what it taught me about the human condition that I had not known before.

In 2007, I published a devotional called Trail Thoughts that the senior pastor of the church I attended, Chuck Davis, had read and liked. A few years later in 2011, we got together to produce a daily podcast on the wisdom books in the Old Testament as a way to reach members of the church who commute into New York City every day.

The podcasts were short, unrehearsed conversations that focused on a biblical verse of the day. In our response to the daily reading, we would draw attention to the historical, theological, and contemporary importance of what was being revealed through that particular verse. The central focus was the relevance of biblical wisdom literature as it related to our own secular culture. We were trying to show that the Bible is not one of many stories important to our times, but is the central narrative that helps us grapple with the very real mysteries that infuse our everyday lives.

In March 2012, I traveled to Israel with a group of twenty men and women under the leadership of Professor Bryan Widbin. Just before the trip to Israel, Chuck Davis and I began to talk about producing a new series of podcasts to follow up on the series on the wisdom books in the Old Testament.

Professor Widbin teaches Old Testament Studies at Alliance Theological Seminary and he has led trips to Israel for over thirty years. His leadership, knowledge, and passion for Jesus Christ had a profound impact on everyone on this trip; it was his remarkable commitment and authenticity that would lead to the writing of