Hospitality

"When you entertain, you bring honor and glory to yourself. Showing hospitality brings honor and glory to God."

The topic of hospitality has been on my mind lately and for a lot of reasons. Just recently my neighbor across the street brought me a meal (enough for a small army) and a wonderful women in my life often invites me over for dinner with her family. (thanks Robin!)

When I first became a Christian, I heard about hospitality a lot in my fellowship. I even have a book with ideas, recommendations about hosting different cultures, and recipes. :) I've seen many great examples in my life of women who 'glow' in the area of hospitality...after all, being in the South...you just grow up into 'Southern Hospitality'. But I want to make sure that my Southern Hospitality is Biblical Hospitality. And I don't just want to know it...I want to PRACTICE it. *grin*

Defined: hospitality is...

1. the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.
2. the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.

The bible says:

Romans 12:13
Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Hebrews 13:2
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

1 Peter 4:9
Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Often I think of hospitality as having people into my home...and it can be...but really, it's more of an attitude of my heart toward strangers and friends. The 'strangers' part...well, I really need to pray to have that heart and live those scriptures out...especially at work. How about you?

Lord, help me grow and bloom in this area! I want to have a disposition of the heart to be full of warmth, friendliness, and generosity. Thru Jesus Christ, Amen. To help me, I was looking at the thesaurus for some other words to give me a wider picture. The ones that stood out to me are: cheer, companionship, comradeship, consideration, friendliness, generosity, good cheer, heartiness, hospitableness, sociability, warmth, & welcome.

So my decision is to pray about this and look for areas where I can show a heart of hospitality toward friends and strangers by putting it into practice. Please pray for me :)

The quote above is from this short article that I thought was great! Click here to read: "Hospitality vs. Entertaining".