(Photo by Selma Komisky)

How-To: Host for the Holidays

By Michele Massie

This article goes out to the guys and girls who realize the Lord is calling them to holiday hospitality and they feel they don’t know what they’re doing! Hold on, help is on the way!!

A friend sent me this the other day after attending an evening of fellowship and hospitality in our home:

• Hospitality is a safe place; entertainment is a show place.
• Hospitality focuses on people; entertainment focuses on things.
• Hospitality creates an atmosphere; entertainment can be neat and closed
• Hospitality exudes a warm attitude; entertainment can degenerate to being cool and calculated.
• Hospitality puts one at ease; entertainment implies competition.
• Hospitality involves making people feel good in God’s world.
• God created a hospitable world; sin made the world inhospitable.
• By our supportive action, we can dispel the sinful atmosphere.

My friend told me, “You have the gift of ‘true’ hospitality!” She had no idea I was given the subject of “How to host a party for the holidays” for the December issue of Marked Ministry Magazine! With joy in my heart, I realized that God was guiding me in writing my article.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread.” Jesus is the true Bread and He says, “I am your provision and I will send you into places and give you opportunities because I have prepared a table. I have laid you on the table as bread.” He’s making bread! Your life and all you have been through up to this point has prepared you for this gathering. It is not just God presenting bread to us, it’s that we present ourselves to Him. I present myself a living sacrifice as we are instructed to do in Romans 12:1.

When you say yes to God in opening your home, the anointing will fall upon you as you begin to serve. The anointing will fall as you consider who your audience will be and focus on the unique and individual people you will invite. This will enable you to create an atmosphere that exudes a warm and thoughtful attitude that will put your guests at ease—allowing them to sense God’s presence, making them want to come closer to Him. With this servant posture, the Holy Spirit will propel you through the planning process and anoint you to represent the love of Christ to all who enter your home.

I have learned to look for the Holy Spirit’s leading as the planning process unfolds. I have found that the Lord gives me a theme for every gathering I host. It often comes softly and quietly (1 Kings 19:11-13). Over the years, I have come to utterly depend on the guidance and provision of the specialness God wants to bring to everything He is up to! I have decided I would like nothing less than to reach my full potential that God has planned and intended for me in all that I do for Him.

Jesus is ever after the heart of people and is always working in us a story to tell of His goodness and His faithfulness. So, when the Lord gives you an opportunity to host a party, you can trust Him to guide and provide all the way through.

So beloved, for your holiday party, pray for the people you are inviting and let the Lord give you the theme. Let Jesus be the center so that He may draw your guests to Himself…that salvation would come to your house!

Dear Lord, Don’t Ever Let My Table Be Without Bread. Amen.