Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. (Rom. 12:13)
THEIR PASTORATE WAS SMALL, A RURAL congregation in a southern state. They were middle-aged, the pastor and his wife. It wasn’t their first assignment, and it certainly wasn’t a place where most men his age wanted to end their ministry. There was little glamour and much work. He had to keep a full-time job to support the members of his family still living at home, and though they were eating well enough, there wasn’t much extra.
But when a young preacher and wife came to hold the spring revival, you’d have thought the older minister had cash to spare. Oh, the meals they ate and the niceties they enjoyed, even down to a love gift of an extra offering! Maybe the parsonage family scrimped for days afterward to make it possible, but there was nothing lacking in the hospitality shown to the visiting evangelist.
The apostle Paul would have approved. The heart of God’s love is sacrifice—He gave His Son. The heart of our love for others is also giving, sharing what we have, both the gospel and other, more temporal but needed blessings.
We are to practice hospitality, to be actively engaged in it. In this way, we can avoid having only a mental religion with no practical application. How would you rate your practice of the biblical virtue of hospitality?
Share a meal with someone this week.
Valorie Quesenberry is a pastor’s wife, mother, author, speaker and editor of a publication for Christian women. She has a passion to communicate biblical truth concerning today’s issues.
© 2018 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
