Breakfast with God, 20240827
Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2024 9:09 am
Good Morning Friends,
Breakfast with God today comes from John Ch 4 and recalls the story of the Samaritan woman.
Firstly though, who were/are the Samaritans and why were they despised and disrespected so by the Jews and everyone else is of importance even today and you will see the parallel later. The Samaritans were a by-product from the days of the Babylonian captivity since the Babylonians only took the best and smartest with them as captives and left the rest in Judea but came back and breed with these left (half-breeds) and then in-bred again and again with the bloodlines until these people (The Samaritans) came into being, and over the years became a despised or tainted people, the most hated group of people in the region, and they hated everyone else likewise.
The woman at the well in John 4 was of this people. She is much like many of us today, a slave to sin. She judged Jesus because He was a Jew and what she had been told about Jews by others. I ask are we judging someone because of others? Judging because of the color of skin, shape of eyes, social or economic background is PREDJUICE. What is in the heart is what is important. It has been said the Mahatma Gandhi once told someone he would have been a Christian if it were not for the other Christians…I can imagine the pain this must have caused Jesus.
Why did Jesus go to Samaria in the first place, was it not out of His way? He went to meet her “on common ground”. I ask, are we meeting anyone on common ground as a Christian or are we looking down upon anyone? There are degrees of prejudice, bias, bigotry in all of us, from me to Billy Graham to the Pope and all in-between but you can never find fault or prejudice in Jesus. In Matthew 22 37-40 Jesus gives us the greatest commandment of all, And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
I ask, are we fulfilling this commandment, are our lives a picture of Praise and Worship, in Spirt and Truth? Did you know you can go to church, read the bible, pray, sing, and serve and still not have true worship because we have not and are not fulfilling the two greatest commandments as dictated by Jesus.
As I alluded to in the beginning, and as I wrap this up with the parallel to the Samaritan woman, I ask you to look around you and see if you see her/him, who is being portrayed by the media as “the Samaritan woman” be it Black, White, Brown, Liberal, Conservative, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, or Atheist you can insert any here, and I ask you (and I too) to go meet them “on common ground” and share the Living Water of Jesus so that we all my thirst no more.
May God richly bless all my friends and family and empower us and use us all for His Glory so that we may reach across the barriers dividing our neighborhoods, schools, churches, counties, states and country bringing revival and another Great Awakening. In His Most Holy Name, AMEN.
Breakfast with God today comes from John Ch 4 and recalls the story of the Samaritan woman.
Firstly though, who were/are the Samaritans and why were they despised and disrespected so by the Jews and everyone else is of importance even today and you will see the parallel later. The Samaritans were a by-product from the days of the Babylonian captivity since the Babylonians only took the best and smartest with them as captives and left the rest in Judea but came back and breed with these left (half-breeds) and then in-bred again and again with the bloodlines until these people (The Samaritans) came into being, and over the years became a despised or tainted people, the most hated group of people in the region, and they hated everyone else likewise.
The woman at the well in John 4 was of this people. She is much like many of us today, a slave to sin. She judged Jesus because He was a Jew and what she had been told about Jews by others. I ask are we judging someone because of others? Judging because of the color of skin, shape of eyes, social or economic background is PREDJUICE. What is in the heart is what is important. It has been said the Mahatma Gandhi once told someone he would have been a Christian if it were not for the other Christians…I can imagine the pain this must have caused Jesus.
Why did Jesus go to Samaria in the first place, was it not out of His way? He went to meet her “on common ground”. I ask, are we meeting anyone on common ground as a Christian or are we looking down upon anyone? There are degrees of prejudice, bias, bigotry in all of us, from me to Billy Graham to the Pope and all in-between but you can never find fault or prejudice in Jesus. In Matthew 22 37-40 Jesus gives us the greatest commandment of all, And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
I ask, are we fulfilling this commandment, are our lives a picture of Praise and Worship, in Spirt and Truth? Did you know you can go to church, read the bible, pray, sing, and serve and still not have true worship because we have not and are not fulfilling the two greatest commandments as dictated by Jesus.
As I alluded to in the beginning, and as I wrap this up with the parallel to the Samaritan woman, I ask you to look around you and see if you see her/him, who is being portrayed by the media as “the Samaritan woman” be it Black, White, Brown, Liberal, Conservative, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, or Atheist you can insert any here, and I ask you (and I too) to go meet them “on common ground” and share the Living Water of Jesus so that we all my thirst no more.
May God richly bless all my friends and family and empower us and use us all for His Glory so that we may reach across the barriers dividing our neighborhoods, schools, churches, counties, states and country bringing revival and another Great Awakening. In His Most Holy Name, AMEN.