Join Veteran SGT Steve McFarland for an inspirational and interactive "Healing Through Faith" additition of Warriors for Life (WFL)!
TONIGHT's Topic: "MISFITS!"
Who hasn't felt like a misfit at sometime in their lives? I have been a misfit since I was in grade school. I was a book-worm when most kids were getting interested in sports, and I have Tourette's. All of that made me "different", a misfit. The reality is that we are all misfits, because we don't conform to all the social "norms" all the time, and probably don't conform most of the time. My favorite hat reads "Dysfunctional Veteran: Leave Me Alone", and I am constantly amazed how many other Veterans feel the same way. We are different, we are misfits. We are Veterans. We are going to meet a woman who was a misfit, even in her own third-class culture.
Most Jews detoured around Samaria when traveling from Judea to Galilee by crossing the Jordan River twice, but Jesus took the western route through Samaria. The Samaritans were much more lax about their ritual-purification so the Jews considered them “unclean“. The Samaritans had also intermarried more with the heathens around them during their captivities, so many Jews also considered them “half-breeds“. This is NOT to say that the Jews were really any more “racially-pure” than the Samaritans, because they weren’t. Even Jesus had four Gentile women in His ancestry, Tamar, Rahab Ruth and Bathsheba, and by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, a person was considered a Jew if either of their parents was a Jew, not just their father. To make matters worse, there was a running-dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans about where to worship God, Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim.
All of this gave rise to the “bad-blood” between them. That was why most Jews refused to go through Samaria for any reason. That background brings us to John 4:1-27.
Had Jesus not chosen to minister to misfits like us, there would have been no salvation, but Jesus said "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10) He came for us.
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