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Building One Another


E. Stanley Ott

HOSPITALITY Vol. 15 No. 5

April 5, 2016

Dear Friend,

Dear Friend,
 
Hospitality is the practice of the open door. 
 
Whenever you welcome someone into your home for conversation, or a meal, or to stay overnight you are practicing hospitality. 
 
You are practicing hospitality whenever you include anyone with you in anything you are doing. Indeed, hospitality goes deeper than a welcome into your home or your activities, it is a welcome into your life.
 
Hospitality in its deepest and truest form offers a warm welcome to the stranger. Ask yourself, "When is the last time I shared a meal with someone outside my family or close circle of friends or co-workers?"
 
Hospitality is defined by the word in.  It includes, pulls in, welcomes in, and invites in.
 
Hospitality moves beyond friendliness. You can be friendly and warm to persons you meet in the church or supermarket and yet never intend to involve them in your life.
 
Hospitality for your church goes far beyond the openness of its services and meetings to guests.  Your church is hospitable when you are hospitable in your personal life.
 
Be alert to those people God brings to you with whom you may practice hospitality.
 
"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling [I Peter 4:9]"
 
 "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it [Hebrews 13:2]."
 
Joy to you - E. Stanley Ott                                 
Copyright 2016 E. Stanley Ott

*Scripture from the NIV