Not just commitment-love for those you don't like, but heartfelt affection for those you have come to trust and cherish. Love does not become fervent and earnest through neglect and distance. Friendship and trust and affection grows with time spent together. Why do we cry when we a family member dies but not when a fellow church member dies that we don't know. It's almost directly related to the time spent together.
Time together weaves our lives together so that what hurts the one hurts the other.
God is calling you to cultivate that kind of love with some people this fall. That's the strategy in verse 8 for not losing your alien identity. In other words aliens in a foreign land need to get together in each other's homes. The more alien we feel in this world the more crucial this becomes. This is the way most of our small groups work.