The Gospel Comes with a House Key
God Never Gets the Address Wrong (1|4)
The Providence of Hospitality
• Winter 1972, River Forest, Illinois
• June 1974, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Pages 65-71
TOGETHER read the book (END READING AT: No one really believes that it is.) and discuss the content below.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out (try to keep it brief).
Galatians 5:13-15 (NIV) You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
1 John 2:15-17 (NIV) Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Romans 13:13-14 (NIV) Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
In Rosario Butterfield’s story about being a little girl hiding on the car floor and feeling fear, she said: I needed a God who was going to come and get me, because I could not find him on my own. I needed a God who could come get me on the floor of my father’s car. I was buried in layers of terror, rings of family violence, and the shame of my own churning and rage. The good was inseparable from the evil, the love indistinguishable from the manipulation. I craved the former without the latter, but these were package deals in my childhood. I needed a gospel that went as deep as the terror that hunted me down and haunted me. Did such a God exist? Is there really a God who lives in this world?
We all live in the same broken world full of pain from childhood trauma(s). We are all affected by them whether directly or adjacently. Everything that is hard and seems wrong in our lives is a divine invitation to turn to God. To fully live out that perspective, we need to be present to each moment. To actively seek out and ask God what he is trying to show us. To be aware that God is always at work in our lives and to trust that every circumstance can draw us closer to him. For everything that happens to us can make us more like Christ.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your notes and pray.
Our lack of genuine hospitality to our neighbors—all of them explains why counterfeit hospitality seems attractive. Our lack of Christian hospitality is a violent form of neglect for their souls.
What is your response to that statement?
Christians too often fear offending people for not using their words. But we can also offend people by using their words in a way that yanks them from their context. Words make worlds, and the only word that can navigate truth is the Word made flesh, Jesus, the rescuer of people. When we change the language, we change the logic.
What is your response to that statement?
Pause and pray - Ask Jesus “the rescuer of people” the word made flesh for wisdom and discernment over the words we use.
EXTRA READING:
“The apostles took every care not to be drawn from the right path. They kept watch, observing the universal precepts their master had given to his disciples so as to be ready when He came again. Consequently, we must always be on the lookout for Christ’s twofold coming, the one when he comes day after day to stir our consciences, and the other when we shall have to give a account of everything we have done. He comes to us now in order that his future coming may find us prepared.”
- Paschasius Radbertus (785 - 865)