Valuing What Is Free

To what lengths would you go to be with fellow Christians?

On the one hand, we answer that question all the time. We, of course, have multiple chances to fellowship with each other throughout the week -- just at our church property. Add in all of the opportunities we have to be in each others' homes and we're essentially unable to calculate all of the times we could be together. When we establish that framework and fill it in with the efforts we make to be with God's people (in the context of the whole of our lives, of course), we start to get an answer about what lengths we would go to in order to spend time with other believers. So, in that sense, we have an idea.

On the other hand, we must factor in how it doesn't cost us very much to fellowship. It costs us some spare change in gas money. It costs us a thimble's worth of time. It costs us just a touch of attention. It's not much. But around the world, there are Christians who gather even though it does cost them very much. They make the effort to be with each other in the face of the explicit demands of their governments not to do so. They're threatened, jailed, and sometimes killed for gathering together. They take on a great deal of risk every time they venture out of their homes intending to fellowship with God's people. 

So, in that sense, we really don't have an idea of how much we desire to be together.

Yet it can be helpful to consider our efforts in light of these realities that exist in other parts of the world. Here, in the United States, where we have so many freedoms, we have the opportunity to show what it means to have opportunity. We have the freedom to exemplify what it means to take advantage of freedom. We can powerfully demonstrate our priorities by going beyond bare-minimum fellowship that is pursued amidst the fear of persecution. We get to enjoy a bit of a preview of the kingdom by gathering so freely and frequently.

Let's challenge ourselves with this. Let's consider how God would have us use the freedom He's granted us to love one another more so that the world will know that we are His.