Tuesday, March 28, 2023

The joy of hospitality....

 

Gratitude, rejoicing, benevolence, trust in God’s love and care—these are health’s greatest safeguard. To the Israelites they were to be the very keynote of life.—The Ministry of Healing, 281. 

At their sacred feasts the Lord had directed that the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat, and be satisfied. Christ’s Object Lessons, 220. 

These feasts were occasions of rejoicing, made sweeter and more tender by the hospitable welcome given to the stranger, the Levite, and the poor.—The Ministry of Healing, 281. 

These gatherings were to be as object lessons to Israel. Being thus taught the joy of hospitality, the people were throughout the year to care for the bereaved and the poor. And these feasts had a wider lesson. The spiritual blessings given to Israel were not for themselves alone. God had given the bread of life to them, that they might break it to the world.—Christ’s Object Lessons, 220. RRe 89

 

When Christ came to this earth the first time, He came in lowliness and obscurity, and His life here was one of suffering and poverty.... At His second coming all will be changed. Not as a prisoner surrounded by a rabble will men see Him, but as heaven's King. Christ will come in His own glory, in the glory of His Father, and in the glory of the holy angels. Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels, the beautiful, triumphant sons of God, possessing surpassing loveliness and glory, will escort Him on His way. In the place of a crown of thorns, He will wear a crown of glory—a crown within a crown. In the place of that old purple robe, He will be clothed in a garment of whitest white, “so as no fuller on earth can white” (Mark 9:3) it. And on His vesture and on His thigh a name will be written, King of kings, and Lord of lords.—The Review and Herald, November 13, 1913 quoted in God's Amazing Grace, 358. Hvn 70

 

 

As the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor. Esther 9:22. KJV