Hosting well is something we’re not naturally equipped for.
That might seem a strange thing to say. Most of us would consider ourselves reasonably welcoming people. We hold the door. We smile when someone new walks in. We’re not deliberately cold or unkind. But there’s a significant difference between not being hostile and actually being a great host. The gap between the two is where a lot of us live most of the time.
I’ve been in plenty of gatherings where the welcome was polished, and the atmosphere was warm, and yet I left feeling like I’d passed through rather than landed anywhere. People were present, but nobody was really available. The seating was comfortable, but the connections weren’t. That’s not a criticism of anyone’s intentions — it’s just a recognition of what happens when we operate from our natural default setting: sticking with what’s familiar and comfortable and managing the unfamiliar rather than embracing it.
The two great commandments were to love God and love others. Those two commands shape the vertical and the horizontal of the Kingsman’s life. And great hosting is what the horizontal looks like with legs. It is love for others expressed as a deliberate, practical orientation toward the person in front of you — not because they’ve earned it, not because they’re easy, but because they bear the image of God, and that is reason enough.
Consider what happens in Genesis 18. Three strangers appear at Abraham’s tent. His response is immediate and extravagant. He runs. He bows. He calls himself their servant. He gives his very best. What strikes me every time I read that passage is not just the generosity of it but the urgency. He doesn’t delay. He doesn’t weigh up whether these people deserve the trouble. He acts as though their presence is an event worth honouring. And the Lord speaks through that moment in a way that changes everything.
Hebrews 13:2 reflects on that account and makes the point that some have entertained angels without being aware of it. But I don’t think the point is that we should be hospitable in case our guests turn out to be supernatural. The deeper point is about the quality of attention we bring. Abraham’s attention was full, generous, and utterly unguarded. That is a rare quality. That is something worth aspiring to.
Jesus captures the same spirit, though in a different way, in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. The Samaritan crosses every social and cultural boundary to stop, stoop, and care for a man left beaten at the roadside. What gets me about the Samaritan is not that he helps but how he helps. He doesn’t do the minimum. He doesn’t hand the man over and move on with a clear conscience. He uses his own resources. He makes his own time available. He follows up. That is love in motion. That is hosting in its fullest sense — making your availability a gift to someone else’s need.
The priest and the Levite saw the man and passed. They weren’t cruel. They were probably decent people with somewhere to be and a reason to be there. But they were not great hosts. They had not trained themselves to see the person in front of them as someone worth interrupting their day for. And there is a real challenge there for all of us, because that tendency is far more common in our gatherings than we’d like to admit. We can be very busy being about the work of God and not very present to the people of God.
The upper room in John 13 is the masterclass. On the night before the cross, with everything pressing in on Him, Jesus gets up from the table, takes a towel, and washes the disciples’ feet. Including Judas. He says to them afterwards, I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. That is the standard for Kingdom hosting. It is humble. It is comprehensive.
Hosting well is an expression of the gospel. When someone feels genuinely received — not managed, not processed, not tolerated — they encounter something of the character of God. The Father runs toward the returning son. The shepherd throwing a party over the one sheep. The woman calling her neighbours together over the recovered coin. Heaven hosts lavishly, and the Kingsman learns to host from that same place.
What I find challenging about all of this is that it asks us to be available in a way that costs something real. It’s not just about opening the door of a home. It’s about opening the door of genuine attention and genuine care to people who may not be like us, who may not be easy, who may not reciprocate. The Samaritan had no guarantee the man would thank him. Jesus washed the feet of someone who would betray Him within hours. That is the level of hosting we’re called to reflect.
And we can only sustain that from a heart that has first been received. We extend welcome because we know what it is to have been welcomed. We were, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 2, alienated from the covenants of promise, without hope, without God in the world. And then the door was opened.
Here are four things worth praying about and working into the day-to-day walk with Jesus.
- Pray for the kind of attention that Abraham had. Ask God to make you genuinely aware of who is in front of you today — not who you expected to see, not who you’re comfortable with, but who God has placed in your path. Ask for eyes that are trained to see the person, not just the crowd.
- Pray about the tightness that holds you back. Not just tightness with money but with time, energy and emotional availability. Most of us have more to give than we actually give. Ask God to identify where that tightness lives and what it would take to release it.
- Pray for humility that serves without needing to be seen. The towel and basin in that upper room were not a performance. Ask God to show you one practical, unseen act of hosting this week — something that costs something real and blesses someone who may never think to say thank you.
- Pray that wherever you are becomes a place where people feel something of the warmth of someone who has genuinely been with Jesus. Not a polished welcome. Not a managed environment. But the kind of reception that only flows from a heart that has itself been deeply and graciously received.
That is the kind of host the Kingsman is called to be.
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
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