We look back and remember that we owe our life to an act of God’s hospitality. We were once strangers and aliens in the Egypt of sin and death. But God came to us in the Passover of his Son’s cross (1 Corinthians 5:7) and made us alive (Ephesians 2:5) and brought us out through the Red Sea of conversion.
Then we turn and look forward into a future where we are loved with an omnipotent power and zeal that are as sure as the commitment God has to his own glory. He will meet all our needs in the wilderness of this life, and he will see us safely through the Jordan into the promised homeland, where we will enjoy the milk and honey of his fellowship forever.
Therefore when we practice hospitality here’s what happens: we experience the refreshing joy of becoming conduits of God’s hospitality rather than being self-decaying cul-de-sacs. The joy of receiving God’s hospitality decays and dies if it doesn’t flourish in our own hospitality to others.
Or here is another way to put it: when we practice hospitality we experience the thrill of feeling God’s power conquer our fears and our stinginess and all the psychological gravity of our self-centeredness. And there are few joys, if any, greater than the joy of experiencing the liberating power of God’s hospitality making us a new and radically different kind of people, who love to reflect the glory of his grace as we extend it to others in all kinds of hospitality
John Piper
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