When my family moved to another country, we didn’t know where we’d live or work straightaway. A local church helped us find a place: a rental house with many bedrooms. We lived in a couple of the bedrooms, and rented the others to international students. For the next three years, we were strangers welcoming strangers: sharing our home and meals with people from all over the world. We and our housemates also welcomed dozens of others in our home every Friday night for a Bible study.

God’s people knew what it meant to be far from home. For several hundred years, the Israelites were foreigners—and slaves—in Egypt. In Leviticus 19, alongside instructions like “respect your mother and father” and “do not steal” (VV.3,11), God reminded His people to care for foreigners, because they knew what it was like to be a foreigner and afraid.

Today, we know how it feels to be “foreigners” on earth (1 PET. 2:11). Our relationship with Jesus makes us outsiders in this world. Knowing what it’s like to feel ‘outside’, we should be all the more ready to make room for others in our lives. We’re strangers welcoming other strangers into God’s family. The welcome my family found in that new country meant we could welcome others—that’s what it means to be part of the family of God (ROM. 12:13).

By: Amy Peterson

To Pray About . . .

God, thank You for welcoming us into Your family. Give us the right attitude and the opportunity to be welcoming to others.