Tag Archives: home

Blown away by hospitality

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Having left everything behind, and finally arrived in Washington in January 2013, you might be wondering where we were staying and how it would be possible given the fact we had hardly any money. Well let me introduce to you our dear friend Diane Segars and her son Jo!

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Out of the generosity of her heart, Diane took us into her home rent free for what would end up being a six month stay! Diane had recently had her basement remodeled and it was perfect for a family to temporarily live in. We had lovely bedrooms, a huge living room and beautiful views from the deck. Most of all we got blessed with Diane’s amazing cooking!!

This is where God led us as part of his plan to slowly heal and restore us. The funny thing is that Diane had been praying prior to us coming about what the Lord wanted her to do with her open space basement. She had felt for a while that she wanted to use it for retiring pastors who needed a time of healing. But in her own words she never thought it would be a young pastor and his family though!

“Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.” (Romans 12:13 ESV)

A hospitable loving church
Living with Diane was just a five minute walk from Faith Community Fellowship church. We had some family links there and it made sense that we would come along to this church in our new season of life. The church in many ways was very different to where we had come from. It wasn’t like the church that we had planted or our previous churches that we had been apart of… but this church excelled in love and in hospitality!

For a relatively small sized church we were showered with people welcoming us, loving us, serving us and providing for us in so many ways. One amazing example would be a future one when we finally moved into our own home. We had literally a few suitcases and that was it. We didn’t even have a fork or a mug for our new home! But the church rallied around us and provided nearly everything we needed for our new home! Sofas, cutlery, TV, food, toiletries, money, ornaments, cushions, chairs, and so much more. I will certainly write about this profound experience another time but I just wanted to get the picture across of what an amazing church we had landed with.

Without love it’s all nothing!
You can have all sorts of great things in a church – powerful ministry, Spirit led worship, anointed preaching, a glorious building, miracles, great publicity, etc. The list can go on and on, but here is something I learnt… in the famous words of the Apostle Paul – if you don’t have love, you really don’t have anything at all! (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

My family and I were in a state of weakness and brokenness and God had placed us in a church that was filled with God’s love and welcomed us with hospitality.

Hospitality is an expression of God’s welcoming heart
Did you know the way we welcome people into our homes and into our lives can be an expression of the gospel and of how God welcomes us into his ‘home’ and world?

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God is the most hospitable person in the universe! Through the death of Jesus his Son, he adopted us as his very own children and welcomed us into his family and Heavenly home.

The father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. (‭Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭22-24‬ ESV)

Through Jesus Christ, God gave us a place in his eternal home! He has clothed us with royal garments. He has killed the fattened calf and put on a party (in his own home!) for us because once we were dead but now we are alive and found in Him!

Jesus shares with us everything that once was only his!
Being adopted into God’s family also means that we are brothers and sisters with God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. This means we are ‘co-heirs’ with Christ (Romans 8:16-17). We literally share everything that once only belonged to Jesus! Thats real hospitality – making everything that is yours somebody else’s too! Have you ever thought of the gospel from this angle before? Isn’t our God incredibly generous, unselfish and hospitable?

We share with Jesus his heavenly home. His unique Identity as God’s Son is now shared and given to us too! His royal privileges and so much more that we don’t really know about. But one day when Jesus returns we will discover the extent of His glorious generosity and hospitality to us as we come into the fullness of what it means to be God’s adopted sons and daughters.(Romans 8:23-25).

The gift of hospitality
What does this all mean for us? Just as God has welcomed us right into his life and home we should do the same with one another. Our dear friend Diane Segars and our church have been outstanding examples of this kind of love and hospitality!

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” (1Peter 4: 8-10 ESV)

You might be reading this and thinking I want to be more hospitable but I don’t think I could do ‘that’ or be like ‘that person’. Well I do believe the above verse indicates that hospitality is a gift and that there are varying degrees of this gift (‘God’s varied grace’) that God has bestowed on each of us. Therefore if you feel a desire to have someone over for a meal… then go for it! Or maybe you feel faith to take someone into your home for 6 months… then go for it! Or perhaps you feel a calling and a desire to literally adopt a child (or more) into your home and family… then go for it! Whatever level of hospitality you feel you have been given, go for it with joy, doing it for the Lord!

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17 ESV)

Where on Earth is home?

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It was 6am and all of us were up and dressed. Our four suitcases were ready packed with clothes, some toys for the kids and a few other things for our 6 month time out to Washington, USA. It was a very strange and weird atmosphere in the house as I looked at everything packed away including all our ‘memories’ of this wonderful home of ours! Most of our stuff was now in storage and the house felt empty. Somehow I knew we would not be returning to our home, although at the time I just denied it inwardly. We were leaving, but not for a vacation but rather for a way of escape from all that had happened to us as a family. This only added to the strange experience of that morning. I will never forget how painful it was knocking on our elderly neighbor’s door to say goodbye. They were such a lovely couple and our kids were often in their garden making them laugh. They had tears in their eyes. I got one quick photo in being the sentimental person I am, and then it was time to finally drive off to Heathrow Airport.

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Deep down we were leaving everything behind – family, friends, culture, history, memories, schools, community and our possessions. But the biggest sense of what we were leaving was ‘home’. I just kept saying to God, ‘Lord this is just so strange. What’s happening to us? What is this all about?

Sojourners
As I read through the bible I find that it is full of examples of God’s people losing their earthly homes and finding themselves far away from what is familiar.

Abraham, Joseph and the people of Israel all found themselves in a life that wasn’t stationary! They were constantly on the move without a permanent earthly home. And then what about the early Christian church? They were a ‘scattered people’ (Acts 8:1). They were a persecuted people because of their faith in Jesus! Not a lot different from the persecuted Christians in Iraq at this moment in time! Peter in his letter to the scattered Church describes the Christians as –

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to…” (1Peter 2:11)

The dictionary describes the word Sojourner as – ‘to stay for a time in a place; live temporarily’.

We as a family have certainly felt like ‘sojourners’ over the last 2 years! We have lived in other people’s homes, we have even lived in a homeless shelter for a month! But all the time desperately seeking to find a home of our own again…

What does the good news of Jesus offer in times like these?
How did the apostles in the bible encourage those early Christian believers who were exiled from their homeland? How does the gospel bring hope to those who feel lost and without a ‘home’ in this world?

13 “These (Christians) all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

The above verses describe the way of life for much of the early Christian church. They were desperately seeking a ‘homeland’. In the Old Testament that was called the promised land in Canaan. But now they found themselves in ‘exile’ and were ‘strangers’ on the earth. In other words they were scattered and not at home here. They were not settled and yet they were desperately looking for that. But here’s the point – they never found that ‘home’ here on earth because their true home that they were created for was coming. The ‘country’ or homeland and life they were looking for was a ‘heavenly one’. Something that God had prepared for them in the future.

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Not looking back but forwards to the heavenly city!
Did you notice in the above passage verse 15? This really grabbed me! A key to moving forwards when you are feeling lost and unsettled in life is this – not looking back but to the greater thing ahead. In this case the early scattered Church had their eyes upon the heavenly home that would one day be there’s!

Temporary blessings while we wait
7 months into our stay in America God blessed us and provided us with a wonderful home of our own. It was so exciting to move into a house we could call home again but… I can’t quite say I am ‘home’! That’s probably because London will always be home for me. However, I have also come to think that maybe wherever I end up in this life I will never quite feel I have arrived… This is because that deep human desire for ‘home’ and security is only going to be fulfilled one day when Jesus Christ returns and brings us into glory! And so in the midst of this temporary life God blesses us with things now. But remember these blessings are temporary and not the fullness of what is to come for us!

Don’t build your ‘home’ on the Sand of this world
So don’t build your life and your hopes on the shaky sand of this world. You will eventually set yourself up for disappointment. Trust me I have been there! This world is temporary and not stable (the news at the moment makes that very clear)! Maybe you are reading this and you are not a believer in Jesus… Maybe you don’t have the hope that every Christian can have even in the midst of a war torn world. My message to you is this – Jesus Christ is the answer to your human longing for peace, belonging and ‘home’. Seriously, if you are seeking hope and help in life, please feel free to message me or ask any questions. I would be more than happy to share with you the hope that I have through Jesus.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Philippians 3:20)