William Temple, a nineteenth-century English bishop, once concluded a sermon to Oxford students with the words of the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” But he cautioned against taking the song lightly. “If you mean [the words] with all your hearts, sing them as loud as you can,” Temple said. “If you don’t mean them at all, keep silent. If you mean them even a little, and want to mean them more, sing them very softly.” The crowd went quiet as everyone eyed the lyrics. Slowly, thousands of voices began to sing in a whisper, mouthing the final lines with gravity: “Love so amazing, so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Those Oxford students understood the reality that believing in and following Jesus is a serious choice, because it means saying yes to a radical love that demands everything from us. Following Christ requires our entire life, our whole being. He plainly told His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). No one should make this choice flippantly.

Yet, following Jesus is also the way to our deepest joy. Life with Him, we’ll discover, is the life we truly desire. It appears a great paradox. However, if we respond to God’s love, believe in Christ, and relinquish our selfish, shortsighted demands, we’ll find the life our soul craves (v. 25).

A friend’s wife, a master seamstress, made a loving plan before she passed away from a long illness. She donated all her sewing equipment to our town’s sewing guild, providing sewing machines, cutting tables, and more for classes teaching newly arrived immigrants. “I counted 28 boxes of fabric alone,” her husband told us. “Six women came by to pick up everything. Their students are hard workers, eager to learn a skill.”

Others describe such newcomers in less flattering ways. The plight of even legal immigrants has become a divisive issue.

Moses, however, issued God’s view. “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners” (Exodus 23:9). He further shared God’s decree regarding strangers. “When you reap the harvest of your land . . . do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:9-10).

God also declared, “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God’” (vv. 33-34).

God set the standard. May He bless our hearts to show love to the strangers among us.

In the aftermath of Turkey’s devastating earthquake in February 2023, a haunting photo came across newswires: a father sitting amid ruins holding a hand extending from the rubble—the hand of his daughter. We see the edge of the mattress where his daughter had been sleeping, and we see her lifeless fingers that he now holds. His face is grim; his grief is profound.

In this father’s gritted face, I see a semblance of our own heavenly Father. Genesis tells us that God was grieved by the devastation of sin in His creation: “It broke his heart” (6:6 nlt). Isaiah, speaking of the future Messiah, says, “He was . . . a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief” (53:3 nlt). God grieves for us, and with us, and sits at the edge of the rubble of our lives, reaching for us: “I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand” (41:13).

Whatever devastation you currently face—a tragic circumstance, the loss of a dear one, or maybe even the effects of your own sin—know that God grieves with you. Whatever earthquake has shaken your life, see that God is reaching for your hand. Whatever your current sorrow, hear the God of love saying to you, “Do not fear; I will help you” (v. 13).