"God-Forsaken or the One God So Loved?"

In John 4:35, Jesus says, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.” The disciples must have been utterly appalled to hear Jesus say this. Why? Because they were standing in God-forsaken Samaria. To the disciples, God couldn’t possibly be up to anything redemptive in the life of a God-forsaken Samaritan.

But they were wrong.

Even in Samaria, God was at work preparing Samaritans for His love, His forgiveness, and the good news of His Son. Even in Samaria. All the disciples had to do was believe it and then open their eyes to see it.

And Jesus invites us to do the same.

Like the disciples, we too assume God couldn’t possibly be up to anything redemptive in the lives of those we consider God-forsaken Samaritans. We too are in danger of missing out on what He is already up to in the lives of people we have presumed were beyond His love. We too have convinced ourselves that it is acceptable and even holy to demonize them, hate them, call them names, and arrogantly dismiss them.

But we would be wrong.

Even in the lives of those we consider God-forsaken Samaritans, God is working to prepare them for His love, His forgiveness, and the good news of His Son. Don’t be like the disciples in John 4. The woman Jesus had been talking to wasn’t a God-forsaken Samaritan, she was someone God so loved.

And, if you are a disciple of Jesus, He invites you to do the same.