“Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”

John 4:9

When the church refuses to associate with the world it becomes self-focused instead of mission focused. Jesus was willing to associate with the Samaritan woman at the well because His purpose and mission was seeking and saving the lost, not only was he willing to associate with her, to drink out of the same cup, He wanted nothing more than for her life to be changed completely. His thoughts were for her salvation not His reputation.

When the Church refuses to associate with the world it stops loving broken people, maybe the typical church attenders aren’t out of the Red Light District, the sex industry, a crack house, or a prison, but they are from the gutter. Maybe their gutter had a different circumstance and scenario. Maybe it was or is a deceitful business, a horrible marriage, an unavailable dad, or a sexually permissive wife; we all have a gutter filled past that we should not deny or forget.

This is the very thing that defines our faith that we no longer live in our gutters and it is the thing that should drive us back to the gutter. As Christ like people, unless we have gone to the gutter, we have not fully understood His purpose, nor fully embraced His plan for mankind. His plan is to make real love available to any and every person who would want it. When we under- stand Him, we will see what He sees.

These people will never come through the doors until they are loved by real disciples who will sit with them when they do. Our commission is to go to the world and make disciples (Matthew 28:19). Very seldom do we meet lost, broken, and hurting people at church on Sundays more often we meet them intentionally because we went to the well.

Broken people need role models of hope and our response to hurting people at the well must be “Come see Jesus.” He’s left His Holy Spirit to partner with us in this commission. Jesus didn’t come to call good people to be better; He came to call sinful people to be forgiven.

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Garment of Praise

Monthly Insights for Spiritual Growth, Encouragement and Personal Victory.

Oluyemisi Onanuga

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible.

Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

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