The Hospitality of God through Christ

 While attending a conference many years ago, the speaker was talking about the Father’s love. He connected our reception into this world, as newborn babies, with how we are able to receive the love of God. Many of us in attendance had experienced much rejection, or at least felt rejected for a large part of our lives.  Maybe our being born didn’t happen in a happy environment. Perhaps our Mothers were single, or we weren’t really wanted, or that our parents were in strife; on the verge of divorce. There were many scenarios which existed on the occasion of our births. 

Whatever the situation, many of us had difficulty believing and receiving the love of our Heavenly Father. And so, there we sat, listening to the speaker describe this Love, and feeling very far from it. The question that arose became, “Are we just stuck then? Is there no remedy for us? No balm of Gilead?” 

We felt  like the man that had been lying by the pool at Bethsaida, paralyzed for 38 years, hoping he could scoot himself into the pool of water there, where it was believed that people who get in will be healed. Feeling rejected since birth by our natural parent or parents had paralyzed us, too, with no resolve in sight. 

But, then, along comes Jesus, and He touches us, and tells us to “pick up your mat and walk.” This was the divine moment that we were born-again!!!! We were a new creation, so our rejection complex should have been solved then, right? Not so fast. After all, many, if not most that day were Christians, and yet here we were so desperately wanting to access the Father’s Love for us. 

The truth is that our being cleansed from so much that hinders us is a process, and that it takes time for those things to be removed, even though we have been made new! Opening up our souls to Him, as He peers into the places only He can see, and asking Him to heal those places, is done in His way and time, as each one takes up their mats and walks down the specific path of healing He has for each one of us. 

My path led me to a place of revelation concerning the hospitality of God!!! He showed me that when we are born again, one of the things that was made new was our birth! Old things that had passed away included our natural birth and the circumstances surrounding it! It was erased, gone, as was our upbringing that may had been filled with rejection also. The day of our spiritual birth, was the day when our life had really begun. 

And who was present at our birth? The whole company of Heaven! God, Jesus, angels, and those that had gone on before had witnessed it, and our Father, through His Son specifically welcomed us with opened arms! The look of Love they had in their eyes towards us was beyond anything we can even imagine. We were wanted! We were cherished! We were received with the hospitable Love of our Father, who also contains the nurturing aspects of a Mother in His heart. Nothing is missing from Him that He did not give us on that day!!! 

When I saw what He showed me about my new birth, I was overwhelmed, and continue to be as He raises me as His own! The unfortunate circumstances of my natural birth, and the rejection that was there, had been supplanted when I was born of the Spirit!!! And His Spirit continues to wash over me with that loving acceptance and forgiveness. This has opened up my spirit to receive more and more of His Love!!!

You are wanted, brother and sister! He has received you with an accepting and loving smile!!! Fall into His arms of grace and receive and become new, as you truly are!!!! And grow in His love and grace. Be healed by this balm He so lovingly lavishes on you!