{"id":9993,"date":"2021-12-10T06:37:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T12:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-john-4\/"},"modified":"2021-12-02T09:25:46","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T15:25:46","slug":"devotional-on-john-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-john-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on John"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15841\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15841\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356-1024x578.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"542\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15841\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356-1024x578.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356-768x433.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356-1536x866.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/PHOTO_20140610_100356.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15841\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Riding the Anacortes Ferry to Friday Harbor, WA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Rubbing shoulders with the \u201cuntouchables\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John 4: Open your eyes and take a good look at what\u2019s right in front of you.<\/p>\n<p>The disciples go into Sychar to buy some lunch.  As good Jews they\u2019re uncomfortable dealing with the Samaritans, but they steel themselves for the task, do what has to be done as quickly as possible and return to Jesus who, in their opinion, has wisely waited outside of town.  To their surprise, they find him in conversation with one of \u201cthem\u201d and a woman at that!  Shortly (at least in my imagination) these disciples will squirm and nearly run away as the whole town of Samaritans surrounds them, pressing in on every side.  This will be the first small break in their separatist views that will be broken wide open by Paul\u2019s ministry some years later.  Jesus describes this Samaritan village, not as a necessary evil, but instead, as a field ready for the Kingdom harvest.  In the church we often pray that the Lord will help us find spiritually hungry people to whom we can minister the Good News of the gospel.  Is there a chance that we\u2019re like the disciples at this point?  Are we overlooking the possibilities right next door?  Are there people we carefully avoid who Jesus views as \u201cfields white unto harvest?\u201d  Would the Lord have us (me) rub shoulders with some of these \u201cuntouchables?\u201d  I need to spend more time in this passage.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: If I\u2019ll just open my eyes I might see some surprising spiritual realities.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rubbing shoulders with the \u201cuntouchables\u201d John 4: Open your eyes and take a good look at what\u2019s right in front of you. The disciples go into Sychar to buy some lunch. As good Jews they\u2019re uncomfortable dealing with the Samaritans, but they steel themselves for the task, do what has to be done as quickly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1507,1428],"tags":[1257,320,796],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9993"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9993"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15894,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9993\/revisions\/15894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}