Who's our woman at the well??

John 4 tells us a very familiar story about Jesus approaching a Samaritan women at Jacob's well. Many of us are familiar with the picture of salvation as "living water" that Jesus employs to show the woman that salvation quenches that inner thirst for significance, spiritual healing/renewal and faith in the One greater than ourselves which brings us eternal salvation.

But stop for one moment and put ourselves in Jesus' position. Here Jesus intentionally shows love and compassion to someone that he knew was divorced five times, not of the "right race" and was a woman.
He still talked to her.

This was taboo in his day.
He still shared the Gospel.
She was an outcast.
He showed her love and compassion.
She still did not understand.
He continued to reveal salvation to her.
She did not deserve it.

Jesus teaches us a lesson in this story. What is it? I think it's obvious, but not emphasized. We all have friends, relatives and people we know who need the Gospel. There are those people who are like this woman- outcasts in our society; people that we "shouldn't be talking to", but the example of Jesus shows us that even the "worst" person isn't outside the redemptive reach of the Gospel.

I think that is good fuel for evangelism, and it's a good reminder that a God who saves the worst of people is a loving and gracious God, and that also leads us to thankfulness rather than cockiness when thinking about our salvation.