Cedrick Baker reflects on God’s hospitality toward us, and challenges us to join God in the life of hospitality. Just as God has freely given his love to us, we can reach out to others and show them the kind of love that we have received. This is rooted in the scene in Revelation 7, of God’s people celebrating the open hospitality they have experienced through the work of the cross. 
Cedrick Baker highlights two images in this Revelation 7 scene. The first image is the white robes, which symbolize victory as these robes are given to those who overcome, (see Revelation 3:5). The second image is the palm branches. This connects to the Feast of Tabernacles which was a celebration of the victory of God’s deliverance from Egypt. This scene depicts the people in white robes celebrating God’s victory for all people through his radical hospitality.
Cedrick shows how we participate in God’s hospitable nature. We do this first by receiving God’s unearned love. There is nothing anyone can do that will make God love them more. And there is nothing that we can do to make him love us less. God’s love, and therefore God’s hospitality, is granted freely to us. We are welcomed into God’s presence just because God is love.
Participating in God’s radical hospitality not only entails receiving it, but also involves entering into it by replicating his hospitality in our own lives. We give what we receive. Just as God welcomes us, we welcome others. As he hosts us, we host others. We become hospitable as God is hospitable.
Hebrews 13:1-3 states, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” God wants us to participate in his hospitality, being a people of mercy and grace as we reflect his character.
Cedrick offers three practical ways that we can enter into God’s hospitality. First, seek out the other. We must take a proactive stance toward others, looking for ways that we can engage people and open our lives to them. Second, refuse to participate in the “accuser” role. Our words about others are important and they will shape how we act toward them. The world speaks ill of others in ways that marginalize them. We must be a people who speak blessings and not curses over others. Third, reflect on God’s hospitality towards you. We can only give what we have received. The more we allow the truth of God’s hospitable stance toward us to penetrate our imagination, the more we will offer it to others.
God calls us to live hospitably, even when there are practical hindrances that cause roadblocks along the way. Some of these hindrances include things like a house that is not set up for hosting, busyness, or thinking that you are not the hospitable type. No matter what, we can all learn to show hospitality to others, and God can inspire creative ways for us to do that. In this way, God will touch people through us, and we might be surprised as to how easy it can be.
Hide Extended Summary
