November Reading from The Message
Hospitality is the daily practice of keeping sacrifice local and immediate. Even an ordinary meal is an extraordinary coming together of life. Here is Scripture and insight from Hebrews that will bless your upcoming holiday gatherings.
Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it’s needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you. Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.
5-6 Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,” we can boldly quote,
God is there, ready to help; I’m fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?
7-8 Appreciate your pastoral leaders who gave you the Word of God. Take a good look at the way they live, and let their faithfulness instruct you, as well as their truthfulness. There should be a consistency that runs through us all. For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.
9 Don’t be lured away from him by the latest speculations about him. The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life. Products named after Christ don’t seem to do much for those who buy them.
10-12 The altar from which God gives us the gift of himself is not for exploitation by insiders who grab and loot. In the old system, the animals are killed and the bodies disposed of outside the camp. The blood is then brought inside to the altar as a sacrifice for sin. It’s the same with Jesus. He was crucified outside the city gates—that is where he poured out the sacrificial blood that was brought to God’s altar to cleanse his people.
13-15 So let’s go outside, where Jesus is, where the action is—not trying to be privileged insiders, but taking our share in the abuse of Jesus. This “insider world” is not our home. We have our eyes peeled for the City about to come. Let’s take our place outside with Jesus, no longer pouring out the sacrificial blood of animals but pouring out sacrificial praises from our lips to God in Jesus’ name.
Scripture Insight
The Most Earthly and the Most Heavenly
Hospitality is the daily practice of keeping sacrifice local and immediate: All the food on the table is life that has been sacrificed so that others can be sustained.
An ordinary meal is an extraordinary coming together of life. Everything served has to be harvested, hauled, and delivered. And then it has to be cut and chopped, ground and milled, roasted and boiled, seasoned and garnished. As the meal is served and eaten, it develops into an act of communion: conversation, emotion, sensory delights, and prayers.
And then comes the cleaning and washing up, the storage of leftovers, preparation and anticipation already underway for the next meal. An enormously complex web of engagement is behind, underneath, and around even the simplest meal we serve or that is served to us. The preparation, serving, and eating of meals is perhaps the most complex cultural process we human beings find ourselves in.
The sharing of such meals is the most ordinary of human endeavors . . . and, at the same time, the most extraordinary. The most earthly . . . and the most heavenly. The most routine . . . and the most spiritual.
Beautiful Wide Margin Bibles for Journaling and Notetaking
Move from simply reading God’s word to immersing your life in it: this is the arc of knowing the Scriptures intimately. These wide margin bibles are optimized for journaling and are a uniquely valuable tool for your journey. Dive into these pages and encounter God.
