Hospitality is an important part of the Christian life. Not only is hospitality a spiritual gift that God bestows upon certain members of the body of Christ, it is also a manner of life to be espoused and administered by every Christian. However, due to the ever-increasing fragmentation of our culture and the rampant spread of individualism, hospitality is neither understood nor practiced the way it should.
In the truest sense, hospitality refers to a manner of caring and showing love to people by feeding them, clothing them, giving them a place to sleep/live, and showing them God's love in the most practical and human ways. This means that we will invite people over for dinner, offer people a place to sleep, and care for them in the most practical of ways.
At the onset, yes, this is not always a comfortable or easy thing, but is necessary all the same. To be sure, hospitality is not simply an "option" in regards to Christian lifestyle, it is a requirement for every Christian to exhibit such love as this. Yet again, as this is not necessarily a natural way of life for most people, hospitality is something that demands some intentionality too.
This means, quite bluntly, that we as Christians will not only sieze opportunities to show hospitality but that we will seek them out also. Even more so, though, hospitality must be shown to strangers, especially to fellow Christians but also to unbelievers too, for in showing hospitality to the unbeliever one may express the love of Christ in practical, tangible ways. Let us then take this to heart as we strive to live a life that exhibits the love of Christ through hospitality in all things!
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