Hospitality Begins at Home

Christians are commanded to be hospitable people. “Use hospitality one to another without grudging” (1 Peter 4:9). But, like with many things, we get obedience to this command backwards. We often neglect our closest responsibilities in order to check the box of external obedience.

We do this with hospitality when we neglect our families for the sake of being hospitable to others. We forget that our children are our first guests.

Your children are guests in your home. They were created to leave your home and begin families of their own (Genesis 2:24). Your goal as a parent is to feed, clothe, teach, disciple, and prepare your children to go form their own households. They are guests, and one day they will leave. Your goal, then, is to bless them as much as possible before they leave.

However, when we host other families and bring them into our homes, we often end up sacrificing fellowship with our children in order to host others. We yell at our kids to get out of the way while we’re preparing for guests, then we expect them to not bother us so that we can focus on those guests. But our children are our first guests, and they learn hospitality primarily by being recipients of it. The way you teach your children how to be hospitable is by showing it to them.

Switching your mindset in this way allows you to see your children not as burdens, not as obstacles, but as little guests who sometimes have rude manners and who need some instruction and correction, but guests nonetheless. So how can you bless them? How can you make your home the kind of place your children want to be in, an inviting, warm, and full home that feels nice to be in? How can you bless your children today? Even just offering them a glass of cold water is service to Christ (Mark 9:41).