In part, the Lord took a hold of my wife's heart through a family welcoming her into their home. She was always welcome for dinner. At times, she was still hungry afterward. She realized years later that they all ate less so that she could eat with them. In that same home, she found a copy of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity on her best friend's floor and the walls of her heart soon came tumbling down.
Already a young Christian in college, I was still amazed by my first "Sunday dinner." A friend on my floor invited me to church and his parents' house. After church, I enjoyed his parents' rich hospitality, completed with a reading of a devotion and a time of prayer. This was a normal occurrence for this family. For me, it was a foretaste of heaven.
When the Lord drew us one week to Grace OPC in Vienna, VA, three families invited us over for meals. We knew that we had found our new denominational home.
Hospitality is such a vital part of the Christian life and the body life of the Christian church. By welcoming others into our homes, we show a commitment to relationships and their depth. In our homes, visitors will notice aspects of our brokenness--not nearly so easy to conceal as in public--and find the fruits of grace and repentance.
And by letting our guard down and welcoming others into our homes, we give them permission to let their guard down as well. Conversations about the weather turn into conversations about the well-being of our hearts. These sorts of conversations deepen the bonds of Christ-centered fellowship within the church; they also establish bonds with those who might one day become Christ's sheep.
So far, we have welcomed about a dozen families from the church and community into our home in Wisconsin. Each time, we have seen struggles, dreams, and reflections of God's grace that we would not have seen otherwise. Each time, we come away blessed.
Perhaps that is the most important thing you should know about hospitality. It is the hosts who are most blessed. We see the Lord's work--both incredible and ordinary--in the lives of others and are left in wonder and awe. With those who do not yet believe, we see the savage wounds that could be so sweetly tended to by our Savior.
Speaking of our Savior, remember that He presents before His people a lavish table of His grace. He also prepares rooms in His heavenly home for us. All this for a people who had no room for Him in their inns or their hearts--only a space between two criminals on a cross. What the hospitable God has done for His inhospitable people! How that truth can transform even the hardest sinner!
I would encourage everyone who reads this post to open their homes and their hearts to the family of God and the strangers within their midst. The Lord may use your hospitality to change the hearts of others. But know this, He will certainly use it to change your heart.
