“I was a stranger and you took Me in” – Matt. 25:35c
In using this Scripture for Jesus’ physical brethren of Israel, we must acknowledge the strange historical dealings of God with them. And that makes them strangers to all other mankind.
Strange dealings of God
You know, it is not easy to take in somebody who is strange. Such a person is usually surrounded by lots of inexplicable, ‘abnormal’, uncommon and difficult to understand encounters. And beloved, this is the history of Israel right from God’s dealings with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their earthly fathers. The strangeness gets even deeper with God’s dealings with their national personalities like Moses their Lawgiver; and Elijah who represents all their prophets.
Just imagine the incredibility of the ten miracles Moses performed in Egypt for Israel to be free from that nation. Even stranger still is the birth story of their greatest earthly Brother, our Lord Jesus Christ who was conceived without a man.
Imagine the miracles He did that no man had done before. For example, how can anyone raise the dead by a word?.
Beloved, indeed Israel and the Jewish people are a strange nation on earth. The miracles of surviving the holocaust and the preservation of their Hebrew language are a mystery. Their high intelligence in science, technology and finances is unparalleled in human history. The controversy with their sole claim to the Promised Land of Canaan which is described as God’s Land makes them so strange that, we cannot understand them with religious righteousness and human logic.
Yet you have to take them in, accommodate them among ‘normal’ humans and welcome them in spite of your lack of understanding them and God’s dealings with them. Is it not even strange that when you welcome them and give them physical shelter, God blesses you?
Beloved, I want to encourage you to accommodate Israel in your spirit, mind, plans, prayers etc. Help them to build decent houses for the many exiles that are returning to the Holy Land in fulfilment of prophecy.
Yes, when you take them into the community of nations, you will inherit or enjoy Kingdom life now for the Kingdom future.
Physical hospitality
My friend, it is important to be accommodating to all mankind or adapt to others. You know, there are people who always want others to adjust to them and not they adjusting to other people.
This is not good enough. The God-kind of love that is the Kingdom-type in your life makes you bear all things and all peoples; not some things or some people. It is unfortunate that people are not able to work with or under others.
Jesus our example
Not our Lord Jesus. Our dearest Jesus worked with all types of people with various temperaments who constituted His apostles. He ‘took in’ working class people like Matthew, fishermen like James, a Canaanite or black person called Judas, extroverts like Peter, introverts like John etc.
It is obvious that our Lord was not like apostle Peter in style or manners but He accommodated him. Also, it is obvious He did not like the financial weakness of Judas Iscariot, but He somewhat needed him around for something – Jn. 12:6.
Similarly, you would be able to cope with all of mankind irrespective of skin pigmentation and manners, whether or not you need some competences they may have.
Yes, you should not only take in people who ‘flow’ with you and whose ways are like yours. Rather, you should be able to work with others who have a culture that is unlike yours, but whose competencies are needed. My friend, the Lord Jesus wants us to love even those who are strange. He wants His children to be well integrated and inter-linked, irrespective of culture now, because in the Kingdom-future that is how it is going to be.
You know, the Kingdom-life is an integrated way of living that is for all ‘ethnos’ to ‘taste’ of, in this life, for full consumption in the future – Matt. 24:14.
Hallelujah! Yes, how can you eat what you have not first tasted of?
Beloved, our Jesus’ Kingdom-love is the bases of being hospitable to physical strangers. So, in life, you will come across people whose life, attitude, culture and understanding will be different and strange to yours, but who are still children of God.
To all physical strangers, you should be able to show them the love of God and accommodate them rather than shun them.
Build houses if you can
My friend, those who ‘take in’ strangers, accommodating them in decent homes, guesthouses or hotels will enjoy Kingdom-life now and in the Kingdom-future. This is because the Kingdom of God is for all mankind to ‘taste’ on earth even now.
The notion that ‘you will not take houses with you when you die’ and so you should build only one for yourself; and ‘even your biological children may not stay in your many houses’ when you are passed away is not a Kingdom-based notion.
Beloved, it is because you do not build just for your biological children but even for strangers whom you may accommodate at a token.
Yes, my friend, we should have more decent houses to lift up the dignity of all humans, even including strangers whose ways or culture you may not like.
