Glimpse of grace in the Hardest of places

I do not write as often as I used to but I hope that what I do write will glorify and honor the Lord who is worthy to be praised. He came to earth, to his own people but they knew him not, but to those who did receive him, who believed upon his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born, not by the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God (from John 1). What I feel burdened to write about, to encourage is the body of Christ. The local church in all the world knowing in some places that the meetings are clandestine. I used to be a member at a huge church and I hid there where I came out to served but never really knowing people and the people never really knowing me.
Fast-forward to now and I by God's grace meet with a smaller body of believers. Anyway just to say I love them and I love the leadership it is something that during this point in my life I need.
Anyway just to say that I have been thinking much about the hard places where there are believers where other religions dominate and being a Christian means persecution, fiery trials, sorrow yet where the beauty of Christ, looking at the Gospel and God by the Holy Spirit sustaining a little flock who are called by His name.
Being a Christian in the US....we are still called to die to ourselves to be pilgrims on our way to a better place a heavenly Zion even while getting glimpses of it here on earth. Christians are called to be knit to one another, encouraging one another, admonishing, caring, bearing with one another.
Anyway I will just cease my ramblings but not before I say this. Christ is worth the loss of our homes, our security, our property, He is a greater inheritance worth the loss of our very lives that we should gain Him and the power of His Resurrection. He grants a greater love, a greater hope, a greater joy, by bearing our cross. We bear our cross which means the death of our will, our desires for the sake of something that far surpasses the things of this world. May I and the body of Christ remember that.
I serve a living God. Christ is risen.