Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you.
– 3 John 1:5 NIV
Text: 3 John 1:1-15, Romans 12:3-8, Romans 16:1-16
Today, day 9 of the She Reads Truth study, we learn that hospitality can be uncomfortable.
Remember in Psalm 68:6, David praises the Lord because He “sets the solitary in families.” God gives us so many ways to reach out to the solitary and truly, the heart of hospitality lies in finding people on the margins and bringing them in.
The first step to hospitality is obedience: bringing people in. This obedience helps us form soup kitchens, care for widows, help orphans, and invite people into our homes. But this is only the first step. Once we have invited people in, we are called to love them.
The author of today’s study points out Zephaniah 3 where we read:
“He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
– Zephaniah 3:17
Our heavenly Father rejoices over us with singing! Because we are called to imitate Christ, we can’t stop at going through the motions and serving folks soup once a year. We are called to rejoice over others with singing; to love them.
This is perhaps the hardest part of hospitality. It is quite possible to go through all the motions, and stop short of loving people and rejoicing over them.
Pray with me today that God would not only teach us hospitality, but teach us to take that next step and truly love.