Defending Your Home from Satan’s Attacks on Real Hospitality

Defending Your Home from Satan’s Attacks on Real Hospitality

Last week in the series, I talked about overcoming the barriers to real hospitality. And although it’s important to take the steps to overcome these barriers that hold us back from inviting others in, I think that oftentimes the main culprit of our lack of intentionality is Satan.

Satan wants desperately to leave us distracted from God’s call for us to invite others into God’s grace. And so we find ourselves “too busy” or “too tired” to invite others in. More times than not, this is me.

We are so busy during the weeks that all I want on our free nights is to stay in and maybe catch up on cleaning or relax. After all, in a world of self-care, I deserve that right?

Can anyone relate?

Defending Your Home from Satan’s Attacks on Real Hospitality

It’s so easy to get swept away in the busyness and become distracted from what is really important.

But when we are distracted and don’t take the time to invite others into our homes and our hearts, Satan rejoices.

I’m not here to say that you need to change your schedule, change your plans or change your priorities.

The biggest way we can overcome this struggle is to take a stand against Satan and defend our homes from his schemes. When we take this step and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, our plans and priorities will naturally align with God’s will.

Don’t get overwhelmed thinking you need to change so much that you back down and give up. I’ve done this countless times. And again, Satan rejoices. Satan wants us believing it’s too hard, too much and that we aren’t good enough for real hospitality.

I’m telling you right now, Satan is a liar.

God will empower you for real hospitality and give you the courage and the guidance to invite others into His consuming grace.

So I am going to direct you to a few powerful ways to put on the armor of God and defend your home and heart against Satan so that you can invite others into real hospitality.

Write Out Specific Prayers

It’s so easy to say that we will pray for these things and even to spend time praying about them silently. But it is when we write down our prayers that we open the door to dedicated and fervent prayer.

I originally got this idea from the movie War Room. It was really amazing to see someone write out prayers and the power and strength that comes when you see God answering them.

Since then, I’ve created my own little portable “war room” in a journal. And it has been an enormous blessing to see God answering those prayers.

I’ve taken time to write out prayers about specifically putting on each piece of armor and about specific people. I’ve also written out prayers of surrender and prayers asking the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to opportunities.

And because of this intentional place for prayer, I’ve seen God at work in big ways.

I encourage you to find a notebook, a journal or an actual closet if you have one, to write out prayers and ask God to reveal opportunities to you for real hospitality. Pray against Satan and put on the armor of God.

When we stand against Satan in fervent prayer, God empowers us and equips us for His mighty will.

Ask God to Open Your Eyes to Satan’s Schemes

This has been a game-changer for me. For so long I had heard about “Satan at work” in our lives but hadn’t really seen specific areas in which I felt he was attacking me.

And yet I was plagued with fear, insecurity, anxiety, bondage and pain. I was crippled in so many ways that were not visible to me.

I saw this again play out in my marriage. So many of our arguments seem to come from nowhere and go nowhere. It was as if we were arguing in circles about...nothing!! And it made me feel utterly hopeless.

When I started praying that God would reveal Satan’s schemes to me, I started to actually see when something was not of God. When something was spurred on from a lie. When something was simply a distraction.

I saw the bondage I was in, the insecurities in my life that were based on lies. And more importantly, I began to see the path to healing.

I began to become aware of the arguments that I got into with my husband that were based on nothing at all and were distracting us from either an important moment of communication or something good that God had for us in that moment.

When you take time to pray for God to reveal Satan scheme’s to you, your eyes will be opened to distractions, bondage, insecurities and fears based on lies that affect your heart, your home, your family and your ministry.

We are called to invite others into our homes, we are called to real hospitality. Don’t let Satan’s schemes keep you from answering this call.

Find Several Sources of Accountability

It’s so easy to purpose to invite others in, to answer God’s call, to go out and make disciples. I’ve spent most of my life with the idea that I wanted to do this. But to actually be intentional and commit is a completely different story.

For years my husband and I have said to each other that we need to have people over more. We just need to do it. But we haven’t.

It wasn’t until we started sitting down and picking a night or a couple and texting them in that moment that we actually started to do this. We still are not great at it, but we’ve started to find ways to keep ourselves accountable.

Challenge yourself to grow in hospitality. Whatever that looks like for you, find someone you can reach out to and ask them to check in on you and keep you accountable.

You can also write down a list of days or people that you want to invite in and tape it to your fridge or bathroom mirror until you get those scheduled.

Being intentional and finding accountability are essential parts of following through, especially on something so powerful as hospitality.

As the last post in this series, I would love for you to comment with anything you’ve learned or put into practice.

Hospitality isn’t easy, I know this firsthand. But if you can learn what it takes to be truly hospitable, overcome the barriers that keep you from inviting others in and stand against Satan’s attacks on your home, you will find that you are beginning to answer God’s call to hospitality.

Do you have any tips to share? Or ways that you’ve seen God work in you through hospitality? I’d love for you to share in the comments below!

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7 Comments

  1. Love this post! A friend and from church and I recently began a small group we call “Sisters and Misters”. We try to meet once a month at a different home, often with a fun theme, where we bring a dish and just hang out and fellowship. Bc it IS hard not having a reason to just gather with no agenda. There is no message or study at this particular group gathering bc we need time to just be with each other and laugh. We hosted Friends Giving and had over 50 ppl at our house. I was at a loss for words at the turn out! While I love having a house full of ppl, I didnt know 2/3 of this group and we all go to church together every week! Now we do and it has created great bonds! It was amazing how interested everyone was to just get together!

    You could host a tacky tourist night, taco tuesday on friday night, 80’s themed or just a reg pot luck…you cannot go wrong with any gathering! Another idea i started at our friends giving was for everyone to bring the recipe with their dish and i hope to create a cook book to give as gifts.

  2. So good! I never thought about Satan attacking our hospitality, but it is so true. I have the size of my house limit me, but no more.

  3. I definitely related to this post – it’s so easy and convenient to say no to hospitality and use any excuse. But it’s not how we are meant to live. Great practical ideas in here, I especially like the idea of sending a text right away. It’s so easy to talk ourselves out of something, but if we send it right when it’s on our mind we’ve already done the ask.

  4. I love having people over and hosting. My struggle is inviting people I don’t necessarily enjoy being around. Buut we are called to love all our neighbors, not just the ones we have fun with! Have you read the book “Just Open The Door”? It’s all about hospitality

  5. I can totally relate to just wanting to enjoy our free nights at home. Especially because my hubby works long hours doing shift work.
    I also love the idea of having a prayer journal with specific prayers.

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