Another evidence of your Christianity is your hospitality. Hospitality means extending a welcome to guests or offering a home away from home. The word is derived from the Latin word “hospes,” meaning host, visitor, or stranger. To be hospitable is to open up your home and yourself to show others the love of Christ. It is extending yourself to others. You make yourself vulnerable by bringing them into your home to see the real you and show Christ’s love.
In Hebrews 13:2, the writer commands that we do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. When we think of strangers, we think of someone we have never met before. However, if you only speak pleasantries to someone at the end of the service or when you are checking out at the grocery store, they are still a stranger. To not be a stranger, you must take time to get to know someone. God tells us to do this by showing hospitality.
Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
To show hospitality, you must invest a portion of your life in others. You can do this in many ways. In Romans 12:13, we are to contribute to the needs of fellow believers and show hospitality. We are to open our homes and share whatever we have with them. If all you have is a hot dog, share it. If you can make a feast, do it. The point is that you take whatever God has placed in your hands and use it for His glory by sharing it with others. I love having people in my home, and I love making people feel special by making dishes I know they love, but it wasn’t always that way. As a young bride, my menu was very limited, but I was naïve enough to believe it didn’t matter. Therefore, many times we had a pot of chili or hot dogs and hamburgers. I was right. It didn’t matter. People are more honored that you care about them than by what you have. God’s design in Romans 12:13 is not a suggestion, it is a command.
Romans 12:13 “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”
When you invite someone to your home you are telling them that they are important to you. You are acknowledging the worth that God has already assigned them. He placed great value on all of us when He gave His Son’s life for ours so that we may live eternally with Him. Every person, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, black, white, saved, and unsaved, is loved by God. Therefore, we are to show His love through the way that we value others. Hospitality is one way that God ordained for us to show His love. Can you imagine sitting around your table after a meal and leading someone to Christ? I can, because it has happened. It is a feeling second only to your own salvation experience. To think that your obedience to show hospitality allowed you this Christ-honoring, life-changing experience is humbling. Jesus said in Matthew 25:40 that when we feed and clothe others, we are doing it as unto Him. In Colossians 3:23, all we do is to be done “heartily as unto the Lord.”
Matthew 25:40 “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
In Luke 14:12-14 we are taught not to make our list of invites based on those who can reciprocate. If you only invite those who will reciprocate, you will have a small circle that excludes most of the people you know. I have been doing this long enough to know that most will not invite you to their home. There are several reasons people do not. Some feel what they have or how well they can cook, is not good enough. Some are just too lazy to put the extra effort into serving others. Hospitality can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, but it is so worth it. Others don’t know that God commands it. They see it as a gift for a few and they don’t think it is for them. All of these excuses are wrong. They are all based on thinking of self and not others.
Luke 14:12-14 “He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Another great value in showing hospitality is the example you set. If you have children, there is no greater way to implement Romans 12:10, where we are taught to prefer others above ourselves, than to teach them to serve others by showing hospitality. Let them help you get ready for your guest. Teach them to set the table, pick up their toys, or whatever they can do to feel a part of the process. Teach them to be excited about having guests. Use this opportunity to teach them love and concern for others. Teach them it is biblical because God commands it. Especially take time to invite missionaries, your pastor, or other men and women that you know are godly and can have an influence on your children. I know from experience what a difference this can make in their lives. We are to be training a generation to obey and the greatest way is by our example.
Romans 12:10 “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.”
