It starts in the hall.
Before their coat is off. Sorry about the mess, and then something about the hall floor, and then by the time you reach the kitchen there has been a second one about the door, and usually a third about the faucet.
Three apologies in about forty seconds, and the visitor has said nothing at all and has not looked at any of it.
And you have been doing this for years, and it is so automatic that it has become part of how you greet people, and it went entirely unexamined until your sister said, quite mildly, last month: you always do this.
And you laughed and said something, and then you thought about it for about nine days.
Because she is right, and the strange thing, the thing that will not resolve, is that you do not know who the commentary is for.
You are a woman who keeps a home and not a tour guide to its faults, and a house that somebody walks into has never once needed a commentary attached to it.
Receive ye one another
There is an instruction in Romans about how to take people in, and the standard it sets is extremely high and extremely simple.
Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7, King James Version)
Receive ye one another.
Receive is a hosting word. It means take in, welcome, let across the threshold. And the measure attached to it is as Christ also received us, which is a standard with no conditions anywhere inside it.
He did not receive anybody on the basis of the state of their house or the state of anything else. There was no preparation required and no inspection at the door.
You are being received on a standard with no preparation in it at all, and a person welcomed the way Christ welcomes has never once been asked to have anything in order first. Romans 15:7 sets the measure at Christ's own receiving, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who apologizes in her own hallway.
And here is what that does to the commentary, and it works in both directions.
If you are received without conditions, then the apologies are answering a question nobody asked. And if you are to receive others the same way, then the commentary is actually getting in the way of the receiving, because a visitor being apologized to is a visitor being handled.
You are able to receive somebody without preparing them first, and a guest walked into a house without a commentary has never once been a guest left to work something out alone. The written word makes the receiving unconditional at both ends, and the Spirit of God is the one present in a hallway where nothing gets said.
And the last clause is the one that changes the size of this: to the glory of God.
Receiving somebody is described there as a thing that brings God glory. Not the tidiness of the house, not the state of the hall floor. The act of taking a person in.
You are doing something that Scripture ties to the glory of God when you open that door, and a person let into a house has never once been a smaller act than whatever the house looked like. Romans 15:7 attaches the glory to the receiving itself, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary hallway that kind of place.
Who the commentary is for
Something practical, and it is the honest answer to the question that has been sitting there for nine days.
It is not for them. They have not noticed and they were not going to, and even if they did notice they would not think the thing that is feared here.
It is a preemptive move. If the fault is named first, by you, lightly, then it has been declared rather than discovered, and declaring feels safer than being found out.
And it works, in the sense that it removes a risk. It also announces, three times in forty seconds, that this house is a thing to be apologized for.
You have been declaring something to prevent it being discovered, and a fault named first by the woman who lives there has never once been a fault anybody else was looking for. The written word receives without inspecting, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows a woman what a habit is actually doing.
Now the practical instruction, and it is a subtraction and it will be uncomfortable.
Let the next person in without saying a word about the house.
Not one. Not a light one. Not the small self deprecating remark that does not count because it is funny. Nothing at all about the building.
Say hello. Take the coat. Ask them something about themselves. That is the whole script.
You are able to open a door and say nothing about a house tonight, and a hallway crossed without an apology has never once been a hallway that felt strange to anybody but you. Romans 15:7 makes the receiving unconditional, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the hall when the first ten seconds go by in silence.
And count the silence, because the counting is useful. It will feel like about nine seconds. It will be about one. And the visitor will be talking about something entirely unrelated before the counting finishes.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman standing in her own hallway with a coat in her hands.
You are a woman who keeps a home and not a tour guide to its faults, and a house that somebody walks into has never once needed a commentary attached to it. I am not telling you the repairs come soon and I am not telling you what they cost. Romans 15:7 sets the standard at Christ's own receiving, which had no conditions in it, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who is in that hallway.
And this, which is the word I actually came with:
You have been received without one condition attached, and a person welcomed on that standard has never once been required to have anything in order first. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an ordinary hallway a place where glory happens, and the written word attached the glory to the receiving itself, so the state of the floor was never in the sentence.
Hello. The coat. A question about them.
Declare this over yourself
- Three apologies in the first forty seconds, you were never once required and nobody ever asked for you. Romans 15:7 says receive ye one another, so by the Holy Spirit I let the next person in and say nothing about this house, in the name of Jesus.
- Habit I learned in somebody else's hallway, you came from somewhere and you are not mine. The written word sets the standard at a receiving with no conditions anywhere in it, and by the Holy Spirit I take the coat and ask them a real question.
- Father, You tied the glory to the receiving and never once to the state of the room it happens in. Your word says as Christ also received us, so by Your Spirit I open my door tonight and I count the silence.
Romans 15:7
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
