People Skills #2

PEOPLE SKILLS #2

We are who we spend time with.

Created to thrive in relationship with each other.

Hospitality – inviting people into our lives – the practice of opening up your life, your space, and your time to people.

• We struggle with it because we never think we are enough.

Romans 12:12-13 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

• The best thing you have to offer the people in your life is your actual life.

Entertaining                                                                           Hospitality

Focuses attention on self                                              Focuses attention on others

Always thinking about the next course                      Burns the rolls

Obsesses over what went wrong                                Savors what was right

Says it was really nothing                                             Thinks it was really nothing

Seeks to impress                                                            Seeks to bless

HOW DO WE BEGIN TO LIVE THIS OUT PRACTICALLY

1. OPEN UP YOUR CALENDAR

2. OPEN UP YOUR PLACE

3. OPEN UP YOUR LIFE

Romans 12:9-12 And so, dear brothers and sisters I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Jesus is our best example of what true hospitality looks like.

John 13:1-5 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.