Welcome to this 31 day series where we will spend 31 days covering our homes in PRAYER!! We are also reading Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love
Read more details about this series and the book club here.
Read Day 1 here & print your October calendar of verses to pray.
Verse to Pray for Our Home
1 John 3:16-18
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
Prayer:
God, help us to not love only in words or speech, but with actions and in truth. This is how the world will know YOU, by our LOVE. Oh if our world could see You in us, God!! Help us to lay down our lives for each other.
Radical Hospitality Book Discussion
Find book here: Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love
I would LOVE to hear from you in the comments! How are you liking the book? What struck you the most??
“People do not need much from us. Actually, they require very little – simple caring really – yet that seems to be more than we have to give. Yes, to be available to those who are needy can cost us emotionally, but we do not offer them our deepest self. If we protect ourselves with appropriate boundaries, we are not threatened by this kind of person because they so happily receive whatever little we can give.
We give to meet a need, but giving also soothes our wounds. You like yourself better after you’ve reached out to someone…” Radical Hospitality, p. 231
I love this. I’ve learned this time and time again in my own life: it’s better to give than to receive. But I love the way the author puts it.
When we reach out to someone, we are meeting a need they have, but we are also meeting a need WE have. We need each other! And when we put up walls to keep others out, self-preservation if you will, that actually isn’t doing us any good.
I’m an introvert. If I had my preference, I would sit on my back porch, drink coffee and read the Bible or a good book all day long every day. However, I think if I’m not at some point out in the world, how am I learning to love others? How am I becoming more like Jesus? Is it HARD? YES! But becoming like Jesus wasn’t ever supposed to be easy. We are to take up our cross and follow Him…where did He go? To the least of these. The sick. The crippled. The poor. The needy.
He came to you and I, the desperate. We must go and do the same.
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