What's the Problem?

"How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (John 4:9)

I have just started reading a new book, Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. Right at the very beginning he says, "We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God." At the core of a statement like that is a realization that church, not Jesus, turns people off. And that is a not a new development. It was happening even when Jesus was walking the earth.

The group was very conservative. They were champions of the Word of God. They were extremely moral and faithful to the law. But they, said Jesus, had a habit of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. They were the Pharisees, and they were about as religious as people can get. They stumbled over the fact that Jesus was always hanging around sinners. They were the church crowd of the scene that Jesus invaded.

In John 4, the character that Jesus encounters is a Samaritan woman who has come to draw water in the middle of the heat of the day. She comes at that time because she is a social outcast. She has been married five times and is now living with a man that is not her husband. During the New Testament times, Jews hated Samaritans, and men did not speak to women they did not know in public places. But Jesus crossed all of the barriers to show this woman compassion.

Francois Fenelon said, "To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid 'big" sins - is this passionate, wholeheared love for God?" (The Seeking Heart). As one believer to another, I can tell you if that is all there is, I don't want to be a part of the program. There is definitely so much more to being a follower of Christ. I believe when we learn to show the compassion of Christ to those in our world that society has turned away from, we will start attracting people back to church instead of giving them excuses not to believe in God.