How do you respond or react to the thought you will be hosting a dinner, a party or people in your home?

Some people have been given the gift of hospitality, and then there are the rest of us.  What does God say about hospitality?  Try as I might, I can find no conditional “if you do not have the gift of hospitality”…  None!  My conclusion is that I am to show hospitality, whether I have that gift or not!

(NASB) Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

  Hospitality defined by the Lord Jesus
(NASB) Matthew 25:35-36 “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;
36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’”

Hospitality practiced by Christian leaders
(NASB) 1 Timothy 3:2-3 “An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious (quarrelsome), but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.”  (underlining added)

  Hospitality given without an ‘Attitude’
(NASB) 1 Peter 4:9 “Be hospitable to one another without complaint.”
(NASB) Philippians 2:14-15 “Do all things without grumbling or disputing;
15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.”

Hospitality involves entertaining angels unawares
Two examples are given, but there are more in the Bible of entertaining angels and not realizing it till later.
Genesis 18:1 – Abraham welcomed three men, whom he did not know were angels.
Genesis 19:1 – Lot, living in depraved and sinful Sodom, welcomed and insisted that two men spend the night in his home…they were two angels who later saved him from God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.  

~ Take it to heart ~

Show hospitality – you may unknowingly entertain God’s messengers.