The Hospitable Leader DevotionalSample

In order for people to feel comfortable enough to share important truths with one another, there must be a prerequisite level of trust. As Terry Smith says in The Hospitable Leader, people “need to know they can really be at home with us” in order to feel comfortably welcome.

In today’s passage, Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, recalling the mission God has given to him. That mission isn’t easy as he’s fighting against the great powers of the world and experiencing suffering as a result. But the suffering isn’t the headline for Paul: The mission is the headline. It’s because of the suffering he’s going through that God’s mission is being spread (verse 13—it’s because of his suffering that the Ephesians are receiving glory). But in light of this difficult mission and suffering, he kneels before the father and prays for God’s riches to strengthen the church so that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. Or, as other translations put it, “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him.” It’s through this trusting relationship that strength is given to accomplish our callings.

What we see is that the indwelling of the heart, this welcoming of the person of Christ, is only had “through faith,” or “as you trust in him.” The word faith can be easily understood or translated as “trust,” “loyalty,” “trusting obedience,” and so on. Essentially, Paul is saying that only when you trust Christ can he make his home in your heart. This trusting relationship is the prerequisite to a deep relationship.  

This can sometimes seem difficult, if not downright counterintuitive. Shouldn’t the trust be offered once the relationship is already deep, rather than having trust come first (which entails vulnerability!) and then the deepness of relationship? This can be a fearful proposition, especially for leaders who have been burned by opening themselves up to those around them. Before we offer trust, we want to know the person won’t burn us. However, how can we ever know something about someone before offering some amount of trust to them? Trust is the antidote to being closed off, and unless we offer some amount of it, the door will remain shut and knowledge of someone cannot be had. Smith offers that we must first offer trust, and after we offer trust, we see if someone is trustworthy. A trustworthy relationship is the goal, but we must offer some amount of trust prior to seeing if they are worthy of the trust. In any of these situations, we knowledgably open ourselves up to the vulnerability of being hurt by someone. But that is our calling as leaders. We will be hurt, just as Paul was hurt by those around him, but the calling outweighs the suffering, and the glory God offers outweighs any worldly sufferings we may experience.