I can’t believe it’s January of a new year. Where did the time go?
A Look Back
Every year, Matt and I spend some time in December reflecting on the year. We write down all the good that happened. I’m always amazed at God’s goodness when we wrap up the year. 2022 was no different. We can see God’s hand and faithfulness all over our family this year.
After we finish processing the year, we move on to the new year. We write down our goals for the new year, what we want to accomplish, things we want to change, dreams we want to go after, and more.
My Word for the Year
Then, we choose a word to focus on for the year. Last year, at the beginning of the year, I chose the word fulfilled. I wanted to remember all year long that God was enough, and that I have all I need. My verse for the year was psalm 23:1.
The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.
Psalm 23:1
The word I chose for this year is believe. It’s a pretty common word. In fact, I saw it on so many Christmas T-shirts this year. The simple fact is I want to increase my faith; I want to take Jesus at his word. No more doubting, second guessing, stutter stepping, questioning…I want to believe. Like the disciples, I want to say, God, increase my faith.
Choosing to Take God at His Word
The older I get and the more I grow in my faith, I realize how weak my faith is at times. As a child and then into my teen years and college years, I had no problems with faith. I had more faith than the next person, or at least I thought I did. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how much I don’t believe—how much I doubt.
This year, I am choosing to take God at his word. I am going to choose to believe that God will come through for me this time, just like he did last time. I will believe that God loves me, and I can rest in that love. It has nothing to do with whether I deserve it or not. I am choosing to believe that God will be enough when I fall short in my kids’ lives. I’m choosing to believe God is not done working in my life; and that he is going to use me in this new year, in spite of my failures. I will believe that I am doing the work he wants me to do, and that he will strengthen me and guide me in that work. I have some personal things I am choosing to believe God for this year as well.
Believe.
It’s a simple word, but it’s power? Not quite so simple. The word believe is tied to faith, and faith can move mountains. I’m excited to see what mountains are going to move this year! Want to join me on the journey?
With Thanksgiving next week, preparations are underway to prepare for this special holiday. There’s so much that goes into Thanksgiving, making it a special holiday for everybody to enjoy. You’ve got to buy the right size turkey and remember to thaw it on time, peel the potatoes for mashed potatoes, bake the pie, thaw the dinner rolls, cut up the bread for stuffing, set the table, and more. We prepare all week to make Thursday the perfect day.
In the midst of the craziness, we try to spend a few extra minutes being thankful. God has so richly blessed us in so many ways, and this is the perfect time to spend some extra time thanking him.
No Time to be Thankful
What usually happens though, is we simply run out of time. The week passes by in the blink of an eye. We miss our chance to spend some extra time in gratitude. We promise ourselves that next year it will be different.
This year, carve out a time each morning in your morning time routine to spend just a few extra minutes in gratitude to God. Use these prayer prompts and verses below to make it easy this next week!
Thanksgiving Meditations for each day next week
Just using these simple prompts each day can transform your week this next week into a true week of Thanksgiving.
For More Encouragement
For more on this topic, check out my post Don’t Cancel Thanksgiving Just Yet. If you need help getting into the habit of writing down something you are thankful for each day, check out my Faithfully Stepping Journals. These journals have a section each day for gratitude.
Have you ever wanted to quit on something, but you didn’t? You pushed through and were rewarded when you did?
We were walking this week as a family on some trails. We’re past the peak of fall, and there’s not much color left. We’d been walking down this one path for a while and just not seeing anything worth seeing. Honestly, I was about ready to tell the kids to head back when all of a sudden, we turned a corner and this beautiful scene opened up before our eyes. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. We almost missed it. If we hadn’t kept going, we would have missed it completely.
One Thing’s For Sure
What do you have in your life right now that you want to give up on? What’s just not working? What are you ready to say enough to? You’ve tried and tried, and it’s just not working. You’re exhausted from trying so hard. You’re ready to be done. You feel overlooked, underappreciated, undervalued. Everybody else is making it work, but you just can’t! What are you so close to giving up on?
Here’s the next question: What will happen if you quit? One of my favorite quotes about not giving up comes from Steve Harvey.
“Everybody has a turn-back moment. You have a moment where you can go forward or you can give up. … [But] if you give up, the guarantee is it will never happen. … The only way the possibility remains that it can happen is if you never give up, no matter what.”
Steve Harvey
If you quit now, you can know for sure that you will never know what would have happened if you hung in there, if you waited it out.
So I’m coming alongside you today saying, “Don’t quit. Not yet. Hold on just a little bit longer. Keep at it just a little longer.” What might be on the other side if you just don’t quit?
Exercise to Try
Here’s a great exercise to try. Write down what could happen if you don’t quit. Now write down what will for sure happen if you do decide to walk away? Now compare the two lists. Which one could you live with? Which one could change your life? Why?
The writer of the book of Hebrews understood a little something about wanting to give up, about growing weary and losing heart.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:3
The writer tells us to consider Jesus. Why? So that you won’t grow weary and lose heart. How does that work?
When we stop and consider or think about Jesus and all that he went through for us, it helps us to remember what’s really important.
Turning our Focus to Jesus
Why does that work? Why does focusing on Jesus help us to keep going? That’s because focusing on Jesus does four things for us.
Focusing on Jesus…
Gets the focus off of ourselves.
Makes our problems not seem as big.
Reminds us what’s important and what’s at stake.
Reminds us that Jesus knows and understands.
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.
Hebrews 4:15
So if you’re feeling tired today, if you feel like you just want to quit, like you can’t do this anymore…turn your focus to Jesus. Consider what he did for you. He gave everything for you, so that you could in turn live for him. Remember his amazing gift of love and let that challenge and encourage you to serve him today and not give up.
He knows what you’re going through, and he will get you through. Only God knows what’s on the other side if you don’t quit! But you’ll never know if you choose to give it all up.
The other day, Matt and I went for a walk early in the morning. I eagerly anticipated the sunrise; sunrise is the best part of the day! The closer we got to sunrise, the more I realized it was just not going to happen. It was too cloudy and overcast. A depressed sort of feeling came over me; I’d really been looking forward to the sunrise. I looked at my phone to see the weather for the day. Not only was there no sunrise, but there wasn’t going to be any sun all day long.
As I walked, I looked up at the sky. I knew the sun was up there; it had risen as it does every single day. Yet, I couldn’t see it or feel it because it was behind the clouds.
Knowing but Not Seeing
It made me think about our relationship with God and how it’s similar to a cloudy day. We know God is there, but we can’t see him or feel him. So it feels like he’s not there. When we’re going through a difficult time or a hard season, it feels like God is nowhere near us. Yet, those facts aren’t based on reality. The reality is that Jesus is right beside us. He promised to never leave us or forsake us. He’s kept that promise to his children for hundreds of years, and he’s not going to go back on his word now.
Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said,
“I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”
Hebrews 13:5 NLT
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
Isaiah 41:10 NLT
Our Reality isn’t Based on Feelings
We have to remember in difficult seasons that what we feel is simply that—feelings. We can’t base our reality on our feelings. If we did, we would make a lot of really bad decisions. Instead, we have to base our reality on what we know to be true.
Here’s a few facts that we know to be true:
God is good.
He loves me.
He is for me.
God will never leave me.
God watches over and protects me.
Just like we know that the sun still shines even when it’s behind the clouds and we can’t see it; we know that God hasn’t left us, even when we can’t see him. So base your reality today on what you know to be true, not on what you feel.
Sometimes, peace seems so elusive, especially when you’re going through a difficult time. David, the expressive Psalmist, teaches us how we can have peace even during hard moments in life.
Like an Olive Tree
I read a verse this week during my morning time routine about an olive tree that made me do some further Bible study and discover some great truths.
Why would David compare himself to an olive tree?
But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.
Psalm 52:8 NLT
About the Olive Tree
Why an olive tree? What is it about an olive tree makes David compare himself to it? I know almost nothing about olive trees, so I did some study.
Olive trees are pretty low maintenance. They don’t need a lot of water; they just need direct sunlight. They flourish in dry, hot summers; which is why they do well in the Middle East. They’re obviously very valuable because of the oil they produce.
So what makes them special? Olive trees are first mentioned in the account of Noah and the flood. The dove brings back an olive branch, indicating to Noah that it was safe to leave the ark. An olive branch often represents peace because of this first instance of an olive branch.
Olive trees grow slow but are fruitful and sturdy trees. In the Bible, they’re represent beauty and abundance. People recognize olive trees today for their beauty and for what they represent—oil. Olive trees are beautiful, resilient, fruitful, and represent peace. Sounds like something pretty great to compare ourselves.
Peace in the Midst of Hard Times
What’s more interesting to note, is that David penned these words right after he was outed by Doeg to Saul. So now Saul knows where David is, and David has to run for his life. So when David says, “I am like an olive tree, thriving in God’s house; I always trust in God’s unfailing love,” we can understand what he’s saying. David is saying, “I am at peace, even in the midst of bad circumstances, because I trust in God’s love.”
David is one of the most expressive writers of the Bible; he gives us so much emotion throughout the Psalms. In this verse, David gives us a picture of how he saw himself, how we can see ourselves, when we trust in God’s unfailing love and believe in his goodness even in the midst of life’s hard.
Peace for Today
I don’t know what you’re going through today, but God does. He sees you. He hasn’t forgotten you. He loves you, and He will get you through today. His unfailing love surrounds you today, so live in that knowledge. Find your peace in that today and thrive.
If you’ve spent any amount of time with me in this corner of the world known as Faithfully Stepping, you know that I am passionate about developing a morning time routine. I believe having a time each day that you spend with God reading his word and praying is the most important thing you can do every single day. The reason I am passionate about it is that this is the way we develop our relationship with Jesus; and developing a relationship with God is the most important thing we can do.
The physician Luke put it this way:
Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.
Luke 12:21 NLT
Developing a Relationship with God
We know that our relationship with God is incredibly important, but sometimes we don’t know how to go about creating or cultivating a relationship with God. That’s where having a morning time routine comes in. When you follow a consistent morning time each day, you set yourself up to spend time with God each day. When you spend time with somebody every day, it’s impossible not to grow closer to them. That’s how it is in our relationship with God. You may not even get something every single day from your Bible reading, yet you feel blessed and encouraged simply by having spent time in God’s presence.
The Thirty-to-THRIVE System
So how do we do this? How do we create a morning time routine? Matt and I teach a simple system. It’s called 30-to-THRIVE.
You spend ten minutes reading from either your Bible or a devotional. If you need a good devotional, check out Manney Resources. We have several 30-Day Devotionals to choose from.
Then you use your journal to work through your prayer for the day. If you use our journals, there’s a section for gratitude, confession, and requests. Then there’s a section to write down what you learned from your Bible reading or devotional for the day.
Lastly, you spend time reading a book. This can be a Christian inspirational book, a book for work, a leadership book, a new hobby book, whatever you choose. It’s simply something that adds value to your day. I like to read Christian inspirational books as a part of my Bible reading time. Matt often reads a leadership book or a book that has something to do with working with people or pastoring. Check out my page for book reccommendations, or you can pick up one of our books.
Resources for Morning Time
You can find everything you need to get started at Manney Resources. Below is a picture of just a few of our resources. Journals on the left, books on the right, and devotionals at the top.
Manney Resources
Making It Special
To make your morning time special, I suggest adding a candle, a cup of coffee, some pretty pens, and a basket to keep all your materials in.
That’s it; that’s how you create a morning time routine. It’s simple, yet it can change your life. If you are more of a visual type of person, I created a video series on getting a morning time routine started.
If you can develop a morning time routine and stick with it, I can guarantee you will grow in your relationship with God and in your faith. It will become the grounding force in your life and will carry you through times of discouragement, depression, and defeat. How do I know this? Because it’s done that for me; that’s why I’m so passionate about it. This is simply a tangible way to have a relationship with God, and a relationship with God is the most important thing in your life!
Love. It’s a pretty amazing thing, but it can also become so trite. We know we’re supposed to love people, but sometimes we lose our way a little bit. A great way to see how we’re doing with anything in life is to take a test, to rate ourselves. I got this idea from my husband Matt. He told me he had to rate himself on the characteristics of love from I Corinthians 13 in a zoom group he’s in. I thought it was a great idea and decided to do the same thing for Faithfully Stepping.
Pop Quiz
So here’s a little pop quiz. Take a few minutes to rate yourself in each category. Just use piece of scratch paper and keep your score.
SCALE: 0–1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10
0- Not at All——————–10- Killing it!
Scoring
How did you do? If you scored 120, you’re perfect! You can stop reading this post because you have arrived!
96-120……………………. You are doing really well! Keep up the good work and keep loving!
50-95……………………… You are doing a okay, but it’s time to step it up in a few areas.
30-50………………………. It’s time to make loving others a priority and really work at it!
Below 50…………………. You can do this, but it’s going to take some effort on your part!
Complete and Full Love
When you read through this list, some of them may surprise you. It may seem that some of them are completely obsolete and seem to have nothing to do with love. Here’s the thing—I didn’t write the list. God did, and each of those characteristics or traits are what he considers to be a part of loving.
This kind of love found in I Corinthians 13 is the whole picture; it’s a deep, rounded, and complete kind of love.
A test simply reveals where we are at. So this simple exercise is just a gauge of where you’re at. It’s a reminder to focus more on living a life for others, a way to see where we’re struggling so we can begin to change that.
For More Encouragement
One of the best books on love is Love Does by Bob Goff. It’s such a great, uplifting and encouraging book that will challenge you and inspire you to love others. You can also check out my post, Love is Still the Answer.
Last week, we spent a few days at the beach. Of course, we woke up early every day to catch the sunrise. That’s our favorite thing to do! Pretty much every morning we’re at the beach, we are out the door before sunrise so we can see the sun come up over the water. It’s the most amazing thing in the world to watch, especially if you can get there when it’s still dark and get to watch the entire progression.
There’s a spot on the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey that is the most popular spot to watch the sunrise. It always surprises me how many people gather in that spot each morning to watch the sun come up. Every single day, the sun rises. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. Yet, every day, people gather at that spot and stop whatever it was they were doing. For just a few moments of time, we all stop and stare in silence in the direction of the sun.
That Magical Moment Right before Sunrise
Right as the sun comes up in Ocean City, NJ
There’s this magical moment right before the sun rises. Everybody gathers around and stares into the horizon, waiting and hoping to be the first to catch a glimpse of the sun as it rises. It’s a moment of breathless anticipation. A stillness fills the air, and everybody waits in silence.
As we watch, the sun crests along the horizon. It begins its rise, magnificent in its ascension. The whole thing only lasts a few minutes; if you’re not paying close attention, you will miss it altogether. Then after the sun has risen, people begin to dissipate. Some people begin pedaling on their bikes once again; others turn to their walking partner and begin a conversation as they walk on the boardwalk once again. Others leave the boardwalk altogether, having accomplished what they came to accomplish.
The Consistency of Sunrise
It always amazes me how the sunrise can be so incredibly different each and every morning. I never grow tired of seeing the sunrise. If I lived by the ocean, I think I would wake up every morning and make my way over to the beach every single morning. Every time I see a sunrise, it reminds me of God’s faithfulness. The sunrise is so consistent; we literally set our clocks by it. So it is with God’s faithfulness; it is something we can count on every single day, no matter the circumstances.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23
Sunrises are More Uncommon than Sunsets
Andy Andrews, in his book, The Bottom of the Pool, says that sunrises are more uncommon than sunsets. At first that doesn’t really make sense; sunsets and sunrises both take place every single day. It doesn’t make sense until you continue reading and he explains that even though sunrises and sunsets happen daily, most people won’t catch the sunrise. Most people have a better chance of seeing the sunset than the sunrise. That’s because most people are busy in the morning. Either they’re still sleeping, or they’re getting ready for work or for school.
Sunrises are for the few that brave getting up early, so they don’t miss out on the spectacular. That moment right before the sun rises is a special moment that most people miss out on. I think it’s the same way with God working in our lives. Some people just miss out on what God was trying to do in their lives. They’re so busy rushing through life that they never stop and look up and wait and watch and try to figure out what God is doing in their life.
Don’t Forget to Pause and Look Up
Watching the sunrise each morning last week reminded me that I don’t want that to be the story of my life. I don’t want to miss what God is doing in my life and in the lives around me simply because I was too busy to stop and ponder what he was doing.
So this is my reminder to you and to myself. Spend some time in this month of October before we go careening into the holiday season to simply stop and spend time with God. Look up. Spend some extra time reading your Bible and journaling. See what he’s trying to do in your life and in the lives of those around you. Don’t miss out on the beauty that he is creating in your life every single day.
My morning time with my Faithfully Stepping Journal
The fact of the matter is God sees you; he knows what you are going through today. He has you right where he wants you. Don’t miss out on what he has in store.
Multiple times during Jesus’ ministry, he healed those who were possessed with devils. While it’s not so common in our culture today in the United States for someone to be possessed, it was a pretty common occurrence during Jesus’ time.
Evil spirits would take over a person and make them lose their mind. There are instances of people throwing themselves into fires and other dangerous situations because they were possessed by devils. It’s not something I like to dwell on personally; it can get pretty dark pretty quickly.
But there’s something about these instances that has caught my attention while I’ve been reading through the Gospels during my morning time routine. Every time Jesus had a run-in with these demons, they recognized who he was. They knew with certainty that he was the son of God. Yet every single time, Jesus commands them to hold their tongues.
Bible Examples
That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Mark 1:32-34
Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.
Mark 3:11,12
I read both of these passages this week, and it got me thinking. Why would Jesus command that they keep quiet about who he was? Wasn’t he trying to teach people about who he was? Didn’t he want them to know who he was? Wasn’t that the whole reason he was here on earth?
It All Comes Back to Faith
The answer is yes to each of those questions. So then why did Jesus command them to keep silent about who he was? I believe it comes back to faith. It always comes back to faith. Jesus wanted people to believe who he was by faith. Faith is believing something we can’t see.
If Jesus allowed the devils to tell the people who he really was, then they would have believed He was God’s son based not on their faith but on the testimony of the devils. The devils would give the people a personal account of who Jesus was.
These evil spirits were the same ones that would have been in Heaven with Jesus before the fall, before Satan fell and took a third of the host of heaven with him. So these demons knew who Jesus was; they’d been in Heaven with him before they were kicked out of heaven. So when they opened their mouths to testify, by their testimony, they would reveal Jesus’ identity. Jesus didn’t want that. He wanted people to believe in him by faith.
It’s Impossible to Please God without Faith
Thousands of years later, things haven’t changed. Faith is still really important to God. He still wants us to believe in him through faith, not just the faith that’s required for salvation. Jesus wants to increase our everyday faith.
And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
Hebrews 11:6
Notice those words. It is impossible to please God without faith. So, if we lack in our faith, God says we are not pleasing to Him. If we doubt that God is going to come through on something for us, we are not pleasing to him. Let’s take it one step further. What’s the opposite of pleasing? It’s to be displeasing. So when we don’t have faith for today that God is going to come through, that he is who he says he is, or that he is working in my life, we am displeasing to God.
Here are some adjectives for displeasing: unpleasant, unattractive, humorless, ugly, exasperating, off-putting, maddening, and disconcerting. This really paints a picture and not a good one. This is how God feels when we don’t have faith. I don’t know about you, but that is not how I want Jesus to see me.
For Today
So what’s that mean for today? Today, we have to choose faith. Over and over and over again. We have to choose faith when we feel like God doesn’t hear us or doesn’t love us. When the bills aren’t getting paid, we have to choose faith that God is still for us and will come through for us. When we’re at the end of our rope, we have to believe that God will be enough.
It always comes back to faith. No matter how long we’ve been saved, it will still come back to faith. So let’s choose to believe God and take him at his word today. Let’s trust him when everything inside of us tells us we can’t. Let’s choose to take him at his word and trust that he will come through for us today, just as he always has in the past.
Have you ever been to a party and had to sit at a table full of strangers? At first it’s awkward. You sort of fumble around a little, but then the awkwardness starts to fade as you find common ground. Conversation begins to flow; and by the time you leave the party, you’re no longer strangers but friends. That’s what happens when we open our homes and practice hospitality.
Strangers in our Homes
Hospitality has become such a thing of the past, hasn’t it? Nobody invites strangers into their homes. Nobody has their neighbors over anymore, right? That’s just not done; it isn’t safe. Nobody invites somebody that they just met at church into their home; they could be a child predator, for all we know.
In our world where safety is supreme and our homes are locked up tighter than Fort Knox, we stay safe by hiding behind closed doors and drawn shades. We pull into our garage and close the garage door before heading inside, so we don’t have to talk to anybody. Or we park on the street and wait until the coast is clear before walking up the sidewalk and into the house.
We’ve conditioned ourselves not to answer the door, not to run into people, not to take unnecessary chances of having to talk to people. We “protect” ourselves from the neighbors we don’t know and guard ourselves against the new family at school or at church. We don’t join a small group at church because we’re just not sure that’s for us, and we don’t really need to be in a small group.
Inevitably, we don’t invite people into our homes because we’re too busy. We have a schedule to maintain, and we don’t have time for company. Having people over will only slow us down, and we can’t afford that. And if we are going to have company, let’s be honest, it’s going to be people we know, people we are comfortable with. I mean, that’s what’s best for our family; that’s what’s safe.
Boundaries
The American mindset is to set boundaries, protect yourself and your family, look for out for yourself because nobody else will, take care of yourself first, you matter…And then we wonder why our country is splintering from the inside out. We’re fracturing at the most basic level—people, relationships. We’ve closed our doors to the needs around us, and we’ve hunkered down, protecting ourselves and isolating ourselves from the outside world. We protect our kids from the “bad influence” of the neighborhood kids. To keep others out, we put up fences; and we keep our distance from troublesome neighbors. Moreover, we don’t do community events, and we are too busy to go to neighborhood activities.
Replacing Community with Church
We’ve replaced community with the church. Here these words very carefully: we are pro-church. We are so pro-church that we started a church over ten years ago. We left our home and moved to an area outside of Philadelphia and started Greater Philly Church. Every Sunday morning, that’s where you will find our family. We, of all people, love the church Christ died for. We’ve made it our life’s work.
We have church events and activities, we have special days, and we have our small groups. But at the same time, we will be the first to admit that the church should not be the only interaction we have with people. We realize the danger of interacting only with church people. We’ve seen what happens to churches who simply stop interacting with people outside of church. They get so entrenched in church life that they forget about the people all around them.
A Both-And Mindset
We’ve made it our mission to see it as “both-and.” We have fellowship with people from church, and we have fellowship with those who don’t go to church. Matt’s part of a group called Front Yard Mission, where the group’s focus is to spend time getting to know and developing relationships with your neighbors. We’re gearing up to have a fall cookout with our neighbors in our front yard. We hope to have a good turnout.
At our last get-together, we had donuts and coffee in our front yard. We had fifteen plus neighbors show up to that. We sat and fellowshipped with neighbors that we knew and neighbors we met for the first time that morning. It was a wonderful time of food and fellowship. Matt didn’t preach; we didn’t have a devotional. We didn’t pass out cards and invite everybody to church. There are times and places for those things, but this wasn’t it. This was simply a time of opening our home to our neighbors and fellowshipping together.
Loving People without Thought of Anything in Return
God reminds us over and over again in his word that hospitality is from him; he ordained it. Why? Because Jesus understood what it meant to turn strangers into friends. He was the master of this. Jesus would take the time to talk to a woman at a well who was unpopular and unloved. He wasn’t doing it to get anything out of it; Jesus simply saw her. He ministered to her and loved on her. That’s the kind of ministry he had, and it’s the kind of ministry he set as an example for us to follow.
Inviting Others into Our Homes
In our quest to follow Jesus’ example, we need to remember that he didn’t call us just to practice hospitality with our friends, with people we know well. No, he calls us to practice hospitality on those we don’t know as well. Our neighbors, our co-workers, the mailman, the guy who fixes our car. When we start to see these people as people Jesus loved and gave his life for, we begin to understand that these are real people that need to be loved and need to learn about Jesus. The best way we can do that is to invite them into our lives, into our homes. And we need to do it even if they never come to our church; they might even attend another church. That’s okay. We do it because we love them, because it’s our job to share Jesus with them.
After we’ve loved strangers and practiced hospitality on our neighbors, having that new family over from church is a breeze! Hosting a small group in your home is super easy. It may not feel easy at first, but just start. Invite somebody over. You will be surprised at how fast strangers turn into friends when you’re gathered around the same table.
**This is an excerpt from my book Eshel Table, releasing Fall of 2022.
