Day 13 deals with an interesting topic – The Ripe Harvest in Samaria (John 4:1-42).

We looked at one key idea – “What does this tell us about Jesus’ priorities?” First, in verse 1-3, we see that Jesus passes ministry on to others. This is a huge priority of His – He wants His followers taking part in meaningful aspects of the ministry, not just sitting and absorbing from Him. What does this mean to you?

Second, we see in the further verses that Jesus is not going to do things just like they have always been done. He was going to go places others wouldn’t go (Samaria) and reaching the world (in fulfillment of Genesis 12:1-3), not just Israel. In doing this, He deals with a woman’s sin without being uber-judgmental and meets her where she is (also unusual). He also teaches her that the way they do religion is missing something – there is more to a walk with God! If you look closely, you will see that Jesus shows that racism doesn’t fit into His ideal, that sin must be dealt with (but not by avoiding it or showing hate) and that prejudice doesn’t fit (woman of ill-repute, many husbands, not currently married, etc). God is doing something very cool here!

This left us wondering what God is doing through Jesus for the rest of the world. If Jesus is modeling that no prejudice/race/cultural/etc fit into His kingdom, what does this mean when we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?” We know that His kingdom does not have one race/color/people. Jesus is modeling this for us. We know that kingdom is for those that have realized they are sinners, but have been saved by grace. Jesus shows us this here. His kingdom come, His will be done, indeed. What are the areas of your heart that need to be changed to fall in line with this?