Faith without religion.
Hospitality
If we look to scripture there seems to be a thriving undercurrent that speaks to both temporal and heavenly hospitality. In most cases of hospitality, the following circumstances or needs, are evident:
- There is a need for others to provide care and comfort to others.
- There is a need for an invitation.
- There is a cause for preparation, which may include
- Lighting
- Suitable environs (cleaning, prepared, made, engaged (heating/cooling)
- Obtaining food and drink
- Making places for sleep and rest
- Offering places for hygiene
- Provisions for transportation
- Care in the case of illness
- Drive to make people feel at home (mi case su casa)
- At times monetary support
Let’s consider a comparison between temporal and spiritual hospitality.
| TEMPORAL HOSPITALITY | SPIRITUAL HOSPITALITY |
| Need for care and comfort | All of us are sinners and in need of forgiveness and reconciliation to God |
| Recognizing this we extend an offer of hospitality | The call to receive the Hospitality of God is constant. To come to Him, to be born again, to receive Him, to turn from the Cold world, to hear Him knocking on the door, etc, etc,. |
| The first thing we do is turn on the light | Genesis One and John One on light |
| And we make sure everything is clean, prepared, made for our guest | God sacrificed His Son from the foundation of the world who has gone on to prepare a place for us |
| We ensure we have enough food and drink | Jesus is the bread of Life and He is the Living Water |
| We check on the bedding and places for sleep | Jesus said come unto me and I will give you rest. |
| We offer places and products for human hygiene | He cleanses us from all sin, washing away our sin and renewing our minds through the washing of the Word. |
| We make provision for transportation while here visiting and then for home (rides to airport, etc.) | He moves us by His Spirit from place to place according to His will and ways in preparation from the ultimate journey home |
| If our guest becomes ill, we hospitably get them to the hospital or to a doctor and obtain the proper medicine for them. | He is the hospital He is the medicine we introduce and that is in the lives of all believers |
| We make people feel at home – our home is there home. | He welcomes all into His house – no matter who. The sinful and the righteous. He is not a respecter of Men and God makes all joint heirs with His Son |
| We provide for the temporal needs of our guests. | He provides for the spiritual constantly at without cost or price. |
Hospitality requires sacrifice on the part of the giver and can be taxing in terms of inconvenience of time, labor and personal expense. We note a correlation between our desire and willingness to be hospitable toward others and our personal love for them. In other words, the more we truly love and care for a person the easier and more willing we are to be hospitable toward them. The less we care and love them, the less we want to extend any hospitality. Those who absolutely drive us crazy or for whom we have hatred it is very difficult to extend any hospitality. As a result, hospitality is a good indication of our hearts and the love for people that it contains. For a person to open their home that person must first have opened their heart – to some extent or another.
God’s hospitality is unconditional and never ending. To put limits on it is to put limits on His love and care – even for the most difficult or unwelcomed. When Jesus walked the earth, He was criticized for his willingness to sit and eat with sinners. Little did his critics know, He came and died for them, opening His Fathers house to all to receive of the endless hospitality of God.
Having take His bride, with the gates of hell not prevailing over her in the least, the Body of Christ is now wholly hospitable – opening its doors and welcoming all into our company. This is the basis for heaven, and if this is the case then it ought to be the case for the Kingdom of Heaven within us here on earth.
Material hospitality is a wonderful thing but there are cautions in this day and age that must be considered. Those material cautions were much less in biblical times while the Spiritual cautions in that day and age were great – hence the Nation of Israel’s views of the Gentile world and then the Apostles advice to sinners and heretics.
But this has all flipped around in our day and age with material hospitality requiring some real discretion – perhaps even some boundaries – but spiritual hospitality, and the welcoming of all to the body has been reversed.
The sooner we arrive at this conclusion the sooner the churches will be operating as Christ would have them operate in this day and this age.
