Reflecting God in Your Home

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Climate Conducive to Life"

"The Joy of Hospitality"

"Grounded in Community"

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Dannah Gresh: Right now, does your home sound like this . . .

Child: I love you Mommy?

Mom: I love you too.

Dannah: . . . or this?

[barking, fighting, crying]

Uh, you might not want to actually answer that question. But stay tuned, because we’re going to talk about how what your home looks or sounds like doesn’t matter as much as you might think it does. Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Today we’re gonna talk about hospitality. Yep, that word. Did you just groan? Or maybe you cheered!

Seems like everyone either loves hospitality or dreads it, am I right? I’ll tell you, these days I often fall more on the dread side of it, but mostly because I don’t have the time I used to. Back in the day, Dannah Gresh’s dreams of hospitality ranged from Norman Rockwell-esque dining room tables to Pinterest perfect party themes. But God has taught me that those are styles of hospitality and the heart of it can be expressed well in my busy season and in my Pinterest-inspired creative moments. Because either way, practicing hospitality is not optional for me as a Christian woman. It’s not optional for the guys either! Nope. But it doesn’t have to be complicated, either!

And oh, as a side note, let me say that while I’ve had those sweet moments like the first one you heard, I’ve also been that woman with the crazy house more times than I like to think about! Bob and I recently had a flying squirrel as a guest for, oh, about ten days! Moose my labradoodle didn’t like that much. And I didn’t like that the squirrel kept eating my potpourri and evading my catch and release cages!

That was messy! I didn’t want to have anyone over during that insanity!

Aren’t we thankful that God gives grace for everything that happens in our homes? But if your house is chaos all the time, you might want to examine your own words and attitudes.

Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty details of what it really means to practice hospitality, you need to understand why we do it. It’s not to impress people, and it’s not to show off. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth to explain what it is.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Our homes are intended to be places that reflect God, that reflect the gospel. We need a vision for our homes. I think so many people are just doing life without thinking about why and what they’re doing as it relates to their families. Our homes were intended to be visible reflections of God. They were intended to be miniatures of the kingdom of God, the household of God.

Your home may seem tiny and insignificant in the whole scheme of things, but it’s intended to be a likeness, a miniature of the family of God, the household of God. Our homes speak. They send a message; they communicate what we really believe. They communicate what we believe more than what we say communicates what we believe.

So the question is, what is your home communicating? What message does it send out about what God is like? Does it manifest His love, His grace, His beauty, and His order? Does it point people to the gospel? Does it help them see their need for a Savior and make them thirsty for Christ?

Let me say, by the way, as we’re talking about home and nurturing, that single women are not excluded from this. All of us have the privilege of making homes places of grace and beauty and order. Your home may be one side of a dorm room. It may be a prison cell. It may be a palace. It may be a double-wide trailer. It may be a hotel room if you live on the road as I did for many years. I’ve often said home is where you sleep at night in the years when I was traveling so much. But we can make homes out of wherever God has placed us, that minister grace and the gospel and the likeness of Christ to those around us.

You see, God is the ultimate homemaker. When we make homes, we reflect Him. We are aliens and strangers that God has welcomed into His household of faith. He is preparing a place for us in heaven, which is His eternal home. We will feast with Him there. He will be our host at that meal.

The cross itself, as Christ extended His arms on that cross, wasn’t He issuing in effect an invitation to us to live with Him, to spend eternity in His home? God is a homemaker. So we’re called to be deliberate, to be intentional about building homes that honor and glorify God.

Let me encourage especially you young wives and moms from the beginning to think about how you can make your home a welcoming, gracious, peaceable haven. First, for your husband: welcome him when he comes home from work. Sometimes we make our homes spectacular havens or places of refuge for our guests, but we treat the people inside our homes like dirt. We need to treat the people in our homes as honored, esteemed guests.

You might want to consider having one room or one part of your house that’s ready for company. It’s mostly picked up, and so you can feel comfortable to have people stop by, to bring people in, to welcome people into your home.

Throughout the Old and New Testaments we see that God’s people were to make room in their homes and their hearts for strangers, for outsiders. They were to open their homes and their hearts.

In the New Testament we see Jesus many times sitting down at meals with publicans, with sinners, with outcasts. We see in the early church that fellowship and ministry took place in homes. Throughout the Scripture we see that Christians are called to open our hearts, our homes, and our hands to guests, to travelers, to the poor and needy, to other believers.

Christian hospitality has an incredible way of breaking down barriers, of softening hearts. It’s a tangible way to put hands and feet to sharing the gospel. Until recent times, hospitality was the normative practice throughout the history of the church.

In fact, the words hotel, hospital, and hospice all have the same etymology, or root background, as the word hospitality. And those things, hotels, hospitals, and hospices, were actually developed by Christians as a means of showing hospitality, a way of responding to specific kinds of human needs.

The problem is, we became dependent on hotels and restaurants and other forms of outside-the-home hospitality. Today it’s just become much easier to delegate hospitality to others, to just send money, so someone else can do it rather than doing it ourselves.

But I want to say that using our homes for hospitality—whatever your home is, whatever size, whatever value it has monetarily—showing hospitality in your home should not be the exception. It’s not just some believers who are great at hospitality. It should be the norm. All of us are called to make it a part of our lifestyle. When we do, we express God’s love and God’s grace to others.

That’s what we read in 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 8–9, where the apostle says,

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Without grumbling. I can show hospitality, but sometimes I’m boiling underneath because things are just not going right. I’m too harried. Without grumbling.

What’s he saying? Don’t look on it as an obligation or a duty but instead, look on it as a privilege, an opportunity to express God’s love.

Dannah: Is that a new thought to you? That God is hospitable? That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, showing why practicing biblical hospitality is a way of reflecting God’s character.

I know what you’re thinking. “That’s great. I like that, but how? I have five kids under the age of five, and I can’t deal with anything else!” Or maybe you work two jobs and just don’t know how to fit it in.

Dr. Pat Ennis and Dr. Lisa Tatlock sat down with Nancy years ago to discuss some of those practical details, along with the biblical reasons for hospitality. This was recorded before Nancy was married, and you’ll hear her talk about that. Here’s Pat.

Pat Ennis: If we’re going to follow the teachings of Scripture, every Christian will be involved in hospitality. Hebrews talks about that we are to be careful to entertain strangers because we don’t know who those people may be. They might be angels.

It’s not a request. It’s not a suggestion. It is an instruction, a direct instruction from our Heavenly Father. Particularly important are those that are involved in ministry. It is a direct command of Scripture that those that are involved in ministry are to show themselves to be hospitable to other people.

That’s one of the ways that we are allowing others to see the heart of our Lord because they come into our homes and, by God’s grace, they see our Christianity lived out. They can’t see that any other way.

Nancy: When you talk about hospitality, what are we really talking about? Is this like you have to have a big, beautiful home? You have to be a great gourmet cook? What is required to be a hospitable person and to exercise hospitality?

Lisa Tatlock: Well, having a beautiful home and being a great cook really have nothing to do with biblical hospitality. I think that’s why we often feel overwhelmed. Really when we look at hospitality from a biblical perspective, hospitality simply means to love others, love strangers.

One thought that helped me take the pressure off—that pressure feeling of “oh my goodness, what am I going to cook, what am I going to have, and what about the conversation?” was to stop and think about hospitality biblically. Biblically, hospitality flows out of my relationship and love for God. Because of my relationship and love for God, I want to love other people.

If you look at hospitality from that perspective, it’s very freeing because now all of a sudden it’s not about how good I am at cooking or cleaning. It’s about loving others. Most of us would be able to say, “I can love people. I may not be able to cook, but I can love.” That’s what biblical hospitality is. If we look at hospitality from that perspective, it alleviates much of the pressure that we often feel from thinking of practicing hospitality.

Nancy: So hospitality isn’t really focusing on my house or on the food preparation, though those things may be involved. It’s focusing on meeting the needs of others.

Lisa: Right. Your food preparation and your home—those are just tools. Those are just things that you use to meet the needs of others. The emphasis in Scripture is on meeting those needs, whatever that might be. Sometimes it was feeding them. Sometimes it was providing a place to sleep.

Other times it was simply just a ministry of encouragement, listening to someone that has a heavy burden on their heart right now, just sitting down over a cup of coffee. That’s hospitality. Shuttling a neighbor’s kids around that might have a particular need, that’s hospitality.

Nancy: So it’s really just being thoughtful of the people that God has put into our lives.

Lisa: Exactly. 

Nancy: I think one of the things that is daunting to a lot of us about hospitality is that it does involve sacrifice. It takes time. It takes effort. We are already so busy, so generally as women stressed out anyway, we feel like this is too much to ask for me to do one more thing on my to-do list.

Lisa: Hospitality is very costly in time and energy and even financially. It can be. So you have to make an intentional priority to be a hospitable person. I think you need to begin to view hospitality as a form of giving. We know in Corinthians it says God loves a cheerful giver. So all of those sacrifices that you’re making in time and energy and finances, it’s part of your giving.

I really believe as you make those sacrifices and efforts to be a hospitable person, a hospitable woman and create a hospitable home, the Lord will bless you for that. The Lord will bless you in the sense of, for example, maybe you had to stay up a little bit later to get your meal prepared or your home cleaned. I really believe the Lord will be faithful to provide the energy that you need the next day.

Or perhaps you did have to sacrifice a little bit from the budget perspective. I really believe the Lord will be faithful to meet your needs because see we’re being obedient when we’re being hospitable so we can be confident in the Lord meeting our needs, whatever those might be.

Nancy: One of the things I so appreciate growing up in a very busy home with seven children was that my mom involved us often as part of the process of hospitality. I can remember hulling strawberries until I thought all the strawberries on the planet have been picked for this gathering. But letting us be a part of welcoming guests, of preparing, of the clean-up process too sometimes. So this can be a part, actually, of training your children.

Lisa: It can be. I think you have to be intentional about that, however, because it’s not always convenient, but it’s so worth it. What you’re training them and what you’re investing in their little hearts and their little lives about the skills as well as the character is well worth the extra time that it takes.

Nancy: So, Lisa, you talk about planning ahead. Do you ever do spontaneous hospitality, you and Mark in your home?

Lisa: We do. There’s a lot of times we’ll bring people home. You can even plan ahead for that, however. You can keep things on hand in your pantry, for example. Things for simple desserts or at least have drinks—coffee, teas, sodas—around. So you can even plan ahead for the spontaneous moments so there’s the freedom to be spontaneous.

Nancy: How simple is okay?

Lisa: I think as simple as you want to be. I think what’s most important is that you’ve invited people to come and join your family and be in your home.

Nancy: That kind of feeling loved and welcome can happen over popcorn and pop.

Lisa: Exactly. Exactly.

Nancy: Pat, you and I are both single, and yet we have both enjoyed using our homes to be a place of hospitality and to minister to the needs of others. This is not something that’s just for married women. How have you found hospitality something you’ve been able to exercise in your season of life?

Pat: I’ve had many opportunities to exercise hospitality as a single woman. When I clean the house and leave it in the morning, it’s usually clean when I return in the evening, unlike Lisa who might need to pick up the toys one more time.

Nancy: Having already done it several times.

Pat: Exactly. As single women, it’s important for us to not always look to someone else inviting us in because we are single, but rather us perhaps creating an environment for people who are weary of fixing one more meal.

It doesn’t always have to be women. I think we get kind of stuck on that. We don’t want to invite a group of single men by themselves over, but the intergenerational and the gender split is a very important part. We don’t have to isolate ourselves as single women.

Nancy: I have so loved having families in my home. My home is set up so that families really can—there’s a place where the kids gravitate to immediately where they can have fun, or sometimes we’ll just sit together around the fire. I have developed some just precious relationships. Rather than waiting always to be invited into someone else’s home, I have found a lot of joy and blessing through bringing others into my home.

Yet, Pat, I can hear some women saying, “I work a 40-hour-a-week job, maybe more. I’m the breadwinner for my little home unit. The thought of opening my home and putting a meal together or preparing my home to bring company—individuals, much less a family—is kind of daunting for me. Does this really need to be a priority in my life as a single woman?”

Pat: Absolutely, it does, because it enriches our lives in a way that we can’t be enriched in any other way. As single women, or I’m sure this could be true with single men as well, we can become very focused, we can become very narrow in our little world. We go and come the same way to work every day and work with the same people.

Having hospitality and inviting people in allows us to explore our horizons, to build our interests, and most of all to show the compassion and the care for other people just as the Lord Jesus did. I think many times we forget that the Lord Jesus was single as well. His whole focus was to go out and to meet the needs of others. Rather than to look for His needs to be met, He came to serve others.

Dannah: That’s Pat Ennis, talking with Lisa Tatlock and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, then Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Can I reiterate one thing they said? Hospitality can be simple. Understanding that’s been a game-changer for me. For example, in recent years I bought a smokeless fire pit and each summer I stock up on marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. So, at a moment's notice, I’m ready to have someone over who needs to talk. I’ve discovered that the campfire feel gets people really talking, and, well, I don’t even have to clean my house to host them! Just grab the stuff for s’mores and a few water bottles.

Hey, for that matter, hospitality doesn't even have to involve food! Just your heart.

But there’s another aspect of hospitality that isn’t discussed quite so much, and that is that it doesn’t even have to be centered on your home. Lisa actually referred to that. She said your home is just a tool to meet the needs of others. She’s right. Because that’s what hospitality is, right? Meeting the needs of others, and doing it with genuine joy and compassion.

One place where we should have a mindset prepared to meet the needs of others is at our church gatherings. Because, well, there’s loneliness in the body of Christ. I got to talk about that a few years ago at one of our Revive conferences.

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I believe there are a lot of lonely hearts in our churches every week, lonely hearts feeling isolated, not feeling together. We have to tend to that. We must do something about it.

The writer of Hebrews tells us something about it. Verses 24–25 of Hebrews 10,

Let us consider how to stir one another up for love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We’re told to draw near to God, and then we’re told to draw near to each other. They’re both critical. Let me say this gently, sisters, because we all have different sensitivities and different needs. But I think during the pandemic, some of us have gotten in the habit of not meeting together. “I enjoy church online,” some of my friends tell me.

Forecasters are saying that a third of the people that have stopped going to church since the pandemic began will never return. “Do not neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some.” Don’t be one of them that is in the habit of not meeting together, and if you have become in that habit, get out of that habit! Isolation in the body of Christ is the medium that Satan works in.

First Peter 5:8 reminds us that the devil “walks around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 

Years ago, my family got to go on a safari in South Africa. We were on a mission’s trip. We thought, We’ll never get back to Africa. Let’s see some lions and tigers and bears. Well, I don’t think there were bears or tigers, but you know, we’re not being ecologically accurate here.

As we got in the Range Rover thing with the ranger guy, early on we started following these four lionesses, and they were obviously hunting. You could tell they were hunting. I’d never seen a lion hunt, but I knew that’s what they were doing. They were crouching. They were talking, communicating to each other, and they were looking for something to devour.

Then, suddenly, there was a lone wildebeest, and as confident as if it was already done, he said, “They will eat that wildebeest. They will catch it, and they will eat it.”

I said, “How do you know that?” because I was rooting for the wildebeest.

He said, “Because it’s alone.”

Satan wants you to isolate yourself. He wants you to be alone. He wants to devour you with sin, with selfishness, with temptation. Roaring lions look for lone prey. Don’t be alone; be together!

Maybe you’re saying, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I am together. I am going to the formal gatherings. I’m going to the table gatherings. But I still feel lonely.”

Let me suggest that true togetherness, true community does not happen when we come together as pious, perfect people. The church is not a country club where we all behave the same. The church is a hospital. The breakthrough to true community comes, the true togetherness comes when we become humble, broken sinners who desperately need Jesus together and aren’t afraid to tell our sins one to another. The church is a hospital for those who understand they are sick and in continued recovery from a very fatal condition.

Here’s where I have to say I once was very lonely. I finally got lonely enough that at a table with four friends I told that one secret that I thought, Nobody else has ever done this. Nobody else has ever felt this. Nobody else has ever known this shame.

You know what happened when I did that? I thought I would be the leper, the one they didn’t want in the group anymore. You know, that night one of the others called me and she confessed her sin to me: an abortion. It was a secret she’d been carrying for two decades. Another was at my kitchen table one week later, sharing with me that it was not her sin but someone else’s that had her in shame. For thirty years she’d been carrying around the secret that she was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and no one knew.

When we’re alone in our sin or the sins committed against us, we are utterly alone. James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins one to another, and then you will be healed.” I cannot tell you how my life is a testimony to the truth of that verse. I know how terrified you are to tell your secret. I know, because I’ve been there, but I can promise you that on the other side of that is a freedom that you will not ever experience unless . . . God’s given us Him, Him alone, for confession and forgiveness of sin. But He’s given us each other for the healing of our hearts and our souls! Tell someone, and be thankful. Be thankful that you have sisters to openly confess your deepest secrets to.

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Hospitality isn’t just about opening your home. It’s about opening your heart. Our churches need to be a place where we do that readily. That was from a message I delivered titled Grounded in Community. You can hear the whole message by checking out the show notes for this weekend’s episode at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend.

I hope you’re motivated to encourage others, to strengthen them, by having an attitude of hospitality. Let’s remember that hospitality is about more than giving perfect dinners in a perfect home. (Although hey, if you just love to whip up gourmet food, I won’t turn it down! But neither will I turn down a simple cup of tea while we chat and fold laundry together.)

Today’s program has been a flyover, hasn’t it? There are so many different aspects of hospitality, each of them important, and we only touched the surface. But you have an opportunity to dive deeper into this topic! We just released a new study on hospitality called, You’re Welcome Here: Embracing the Heart of Hospitality. You can do it by yourself or as a group, and it explores why you need to practice hospitality, how you can, and more.

And when you give any amount to Revive Our Hearts this month, we’ll be glad to send you a copy of that six-week study. Oh, and I nearly forgot to tell you—we’re releasing weekly videos to go along with that study! You’ll want to check those out too. So, when you give at ReviveOurHearts.com, be sure to ask for your copy of You’re Welcome Here. Again, that website is ReviveOurHearts.com.

I hope you’re able to gather in worship with your local church this weekend! 

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.