For many years, I read one book a week. Then…I got married. Life happened. Schedules, priorities, and well…everything changed! It’s been good, mind you, but things have changed.
Recently, however, I’ve chosen to once again give my love (and yes, need) for reading a higher priority. I find that it feeds me, motivates me, and stirs the creative nature within me, and that creative side is an essential element of who God created me to be. One of the books I’ve enjoyed and learned from most recently, The Gospel Comes with a House Key (affiliate link), was recommended through a devotional I read a few months ago.
As a way of connecting spiritually with some of the younger women in my church, I began using the daily devotional option on the YouVersion Bible app. Because Joe and I enjoy entertaining guests in our home (both for meals and for overnights), I was drawn to a five-day devotional whose title intrigued me: Your Home Is an Embassy. Though its truths were quite familiar, the concept of viewing my home as an earthly embassy that serves as a representation of my heavenly citizenship altered my way of thinking. As dramatic as this sounds, it was life-changing for me. And for Joe.
We have prayed from day one that our home would be a haven, not only for us, but for all who enter. Yet, we didn’t want to cross the line that often can cause people to become focused on the physical building or its contents. Stuff is just stuff. But if that stuff helps to represent who we are as ambassadors of the King, strengthens our relationship with the King, refreshes our spirits in service to the King, and thereby points guests toward knowing more about the King, then its worth having. Otherwise, it doesn’t need to be in our home. (It’s been the most solidly motivating “decluttering” method I’ve ever used!)
“For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:1, 20, NASB).
It’s about more than entertaining. It’s much more than just having people over or letting people stay in a guest room. We now see our home as the place that God has entrusted to us in which we are to fulfill our role as His ambassadors, eagerly using each dish, couch, chair, room, word, memory, hope, dream, moment as a tool with which to show His love.
I would be remiss not to give you a word of warning. Do not use your home as an embassy, expecting to have the gift of hospitality reciprocated. Entertaining friends and strangers quite understandably can be overwhelming, and it’s not something everyone is asked to do.
But along with my warning I must also share some loving advice. First, read the five-day challenge I spoke of above (written by Barbara Rainey) and ask God to help you view your resources and your home as tools for serving Him—for helping others learn more of the King and of the place of your eternal citizenship. (By the way, believers and unbelievers alike need a haven where they are not only encouraged to take the next step spiritually but where it’s also safe to do so.) Here are a few practical ideas to get you started or to help you keep moving forward in your already established practice of opening your home to others:
- Pray about it. Ask God to open your heart to the idea of opening your home.
- Print your own free, grayscale, downloadable “Welcome to the Embassy” sign by clicking here or on the photo below. (We recommend that you frame it and either hang it near the front door or put it in a prominent location near the entry to your home.) This is a .jpg file (it will be an 8 x10 picture), so feel free to print it off at a local store’s photo department or save it as a .pdf and print it off on your home printer.
- Start small. Have a friend over for coffee; invite a young couple over for popcorn and “game night”; host a neighbor in the early evening for a light dessert.
- Enlist the other “ambassadors” in your home by letting them share in the joy of entertaining. Kids don’t “give up” their rooms for missionaries or for family guests; they get to share and to be ambassadors for the King!
- Keep meals simple. Check out our “Come on Over” category of blog posts for some quick, easy, inexpensive ideas!
We’d love to see your embassy sign, so feel free to comment with a photo or share it on our Facebook page!
In the meantime, thank you, dear fellow ambassadors, for choosing to let us share with you what God is teaching us! We appreciate you—big time!
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