Monday 10 December, 2018

5 Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. 6 They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God. 7 It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. 8 We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth.

What a wonderful encouragement Gaius receives from John – and a public testimony to his servant-hood and hospitality to travelling believers/ministries. John encourages Gaius to keep it up as by offering these folks hospitality he becomes a co-worker with them. Gods’ Kingdom operates so differently, we are to be interconnected, family, no one is to be a lone worker.

I understand John’s encouragement to Gaius to keep up this ministry having been in missions. I know first hand how wonderful it can be to receive hospitality from believers I don’t know but how the blessing goes both ways. They hear what God is busy doing in other places & in the ministry they are enabling and we, by being included in the family meal, the security of their home & hearing how God is at work in their lives and church. We may have arrived as ‘strangers’ but we never leave that way.

Lord thank you for the timely reminder of the hospitality that I’ve received in the past and that as Christians we are all interconnected – we can make an impact for your Kingdom, right in our own homes.

Written by Suzie Hodgson