The Gospel Comes with a House Key
The Gospel Comes with a House Key (3|5)
The Seal of Hospitality
• Thanksgiving 2016: Making Room
• Short-Term and Dependable Hospitality in the Home
Pages 98-104
TOGETHER read the book (END READING AT: And the kitchen is my kingdom.) and discuss the content below.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out (try to keep it brief).
Hebrews 13:2 (NIV) Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
Hebrews 13:15-16 (NIV) Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
1 Peter 4:9-11 (NIV) Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
When table fellowship includes [everyone] permanent bonds of care and kinship are the consequence. We belong to each other, and even though we may have just realized it, we always have.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your notes and pray.
We love the miraculous stories of Jesus, his feeding of the five thousand, his divine healing, his contagious grace. And we miss the most obvious thing about these stories: that we are meant to replicate them in ordinary, nonmiraculous ways.
What is your response to that statement?
Do you agree that you are called to replicate the miracles of Jesus in ordinary, nonmiraculous ways?
Luke 17:2 (NIV) “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.” Christians know the difference between giving grace and putting a millstone around someone’s neck. What’s the difference? Grace is bloody. Grace is purchased by the blood of Christ. Grace brings you to your knees. Grace gives you the safety to repent. A millstone encourages you to sin against God and others all in the name of being kind to the weakest of the flesh.
What is your response to that statement?
How have you experienced (giving or receiving or both) Grace that is purchased by the blood of Christ?
Pause and Pray - that you would seek the grace of Jesus to extend the grace of Jesus to everyone.
EXTRA READING:
“Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. We have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center! If only we could find the Silence which is the source of sound!”
- Thomas Kelly (1893 - 1941)