My family moved back home to Tennessee a few months ago where we met Mary and Wes. My husband was asked to fill in as the preacher at their church, and we hit the Mary and Wes hospitality radar. They immediately welcomed us into their home, their world, and their prayer lives. The first week we met, a group text was formed, funny gifs were exchanged, then dinner at their house. After church one Sunday, they took us to lunch, and we went home happy for after-church naps. When we woke up, we had a text from them asking if we had dinner plans that night. We had never been showered with so much hospitality, so much welcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mary and Wes are legitimately amazing examples of the love of Jesus. Wes is the worship leader at our church, and when he talks about Jesus, he cries. Mary is a nurse, and when she heard that my oldest daughter had a cold, a package showed up on our porch to cheer my daughter up. Guys, we\u2019d known them for like three weeks, and yet they showed us the love of Jesus in such powerful, beautiful, proactive ways. It is undeniably impactful to experience the hospitality of Jesus through the people who love like Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s reading points us toward our call to love others. Jesus reminds His followers that the whole law is summed up by loving God and loving others (Mark 12:29\u201331, Luke 10:27). These scriptures simultaneously spur us on to love people sacrificially while also providing the comfort that Jesus is the One who did and does and will do the heavy lifting of loving others through us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t consider hospitality to be a natural gift of mine, but being loved by people like Mary and Wes is a master class in loving well. It makes me want to love them back. And it\u2019s the same with Jesus\u2014we love because He so loved! Because He showed us mercy, we are able to be merciful. Because He welcomed us into His family, we can welcome others. Mary and Wes aren\u2019t sinless superheroes. Neither am I. Neither are you. But Jesus\u2019s love equips us. Because He shouldered the burden of a broken world, defeating what we couldn\u2019t and accomplishing what we didn\u2019t, we have seen true love. In Jesus, we know what love looks like. In Jesus, we know what love feels like. Through Jesus, we can share what we have with others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My family moved back home to Tennessee a few months ago where we met Mary and Wes. My husband was asked to fill in as the preacher at their church, and we hit the Mary and Wes hospitality radar. They immediately welcomed us into their home, their world, and their prayer lives. The first week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":71638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-makingroom24"],"acf":{"hero_background_image":false,"related_plans":[71656],"weekly_truth":false,"grace_day":false,"share_text":"#SheReadsTruth","devotional_text":"MAKING ROOM FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR<\/b>
\r\nby Scarlet Hiltibidal<\/i>
\r\n
My family moved back home to Tennessee a few months ago where we met Mary and Wes. My husband was asked to fill in as the preacher at their church, and we hit the Mary and Wes hospitality radar. They immediately welcomed us into their home, their world, and their prayer lives. The first week we met, a group text was formed, funny gifs were exchanged, then dinner at their house. After church one Sunday, they took us to lunch, and we went home happy for after-church naps. When we woke up, we had a text from them asking if we had dinner plans that night. We had never been showered with so much hospitality, so much welcoming.<\/p>
\r\n
Mary and Wes are legitimately amazing examples of the love of Jesus. Wes is the worship leader at our church, and when he talks about Jesus, he cries. Mary is a nurse, and when she heard that my oldest daughter had a cold, a package showed up on our porch to cheer my daughter up. Guys, we\u2019d known them for like three weeks, and yet they showed us the love of Jesus in such powerful, beautiful, proactive ways. It is undeniably impactful to experience the hospitality of Jesus through the people who love like Him.<\/p>
\r\n
Today\u2019s reading points us toward our call to love others. Jesus reminds His followers that the whole law is summed up by loving God and loving others (Mark 12:29\u201331, Luke 10:27). These scriptures simultaneously spur us on to love people sacrificially while also providing the comfort that Jesus is the One who did and does and will do the heavy lifting of loving others through us.<\/p>
\r\n
I don\u2019t consider hospitality to be a natural gift of mine, but being loved by people like Mary and Wes is a master class in loving well. It makes me want to love them back. And it\u2019s the same with Jesus\u2014we love because He so loved! Because He showed us mercy, we are able to be merciful. Because He welcomed us into His family, we can welcome others. Mary and Wes aren\u2019t sinless superheroes. Neither am I. Neither are you. But Jesus\u2019s love equips us. Because He shouldered the burden of a broken world, defeating what we couldn\u2019t and accomplishing what we didn\u2019t, we have seen true love. In Jesus, we know what love looks like. In Jesus, we know what love feels like. Through Jesus, we can share what we have with others.<\/p>","share_image_height":"640","day_number":"2","scripture":"Mark 12:28-34, Luke 10:25-37, Romans 13:8-10, Galatians 6:2","available":true,"ad_banner_name":"","ad_banner_image":false,"ad_banner_url":"","songs":"","key_verse":"","key_verse_reference":"","background_image":false,"background_color":"#FBF7F3","scripture_references":false,"share_image":false,"author_name":"","author_bio":"","guest_social_media":false,"show_ad":true,"ad_override":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}