Monday, August 31, 2009

Given to Hospitality


Use hospitality one to another without grudging. (1 Peter 4:9)

I came to our pastor’s house today to borrow a power washer, (got some deck cleaning to do), and his son saw me pulling up in the yard. He smiled at me and I asked him which way I could enter in the house. He said “you can go in anyway, the door is open!” I walked in through my pastor’s garage door and into his house. Nobody was around, I felt “like man, this is awesome; I can just walk right in here”. To my surprise I saw Pastor Tom sitting on the couch with his laptop. I spoke, and he jumped up quickly to embrace me, not just to shake my hand. We talked and he showed me how to use his power washer. He smiled though whole time, if I was a stranger, I would have felt so warm and loved. Ohhh what has happened to hospitality, something that is missing from the body of Jesus Christ. Especially since pastor Tom has been threatened by someone before. Anyways, are we as Christians doing the same? Are we opening our homes up and being hospitable?

Nowadays, your may get a secretary or a deacon that will talk to you, but what happened to hospitality among the brethren. The bible speaks of this:


[Be] kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. (Romans 12:10-13)


Philoxenia is the Greek for hospitality. It means hospitableness:--entertain stranger, hospitality, love to strangers. Our homes as Christians should be like this. Our neighbors should be able to walk in and be entertained, taking care of and loved. Everybody now seems to be afraid to let somebody in the door for fear of getting robbed. But are the Christian doors supposed to be this way?


Also, for those of you who look at your pastors, is his door open? Can you go by his home and chat with him? Do you even have his home number? Or is it you cannot get near him because you might through off his anointing? Hogwash, look what the scriptures say:


A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; (1 Timothy 3:2)


Oh and it doesn’t stop there check out Titus:


For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; (Titus 1:7-8)


A lover of hospitality, what? Yes in the Greek transliteration that means literally loving strangers and generous to guest. Now, is your bishop doing that? Is your pastor holding to that? Are we as Christians opening are homes to the world around us, so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be known? Your neighbors should be able to come to you. They should know, “when I go to so and so’s, they are going to let me in!”


I urge you brethren to be and live like Christ Jesus. Open your home, let it be a welcoming place for the lost. And please make sure, this is a quality that your pastor has. God bless you my brethren and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.


And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake? And [there was] of the house of Saul a servant whose name [was] Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the king said unto him, [Art] thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant [is he]. And the king said, [Is] there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew the kindness of God unto him? And Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a son, [which is] lame on [his] feet. And the king said unto him, Where [is] he? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he [is] in the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, in Lodebar. Then king David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, from Lodebar. Now when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was come unto David, he fell on his face, and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold thy servant! And David said unto him, Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually. And he bowed himself, and said, What [is] thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I [am]? (2 Samuel 9:1-8)

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