In our public prayers, we often thank God for the fact that we live in a country where we can worship him “openly and unafraid.” (I’ll save a discussion of repetitive phrases in our prayers for another article, but feel welcome to read Matthew 6:7 at your earliest opportunity.)

As things to mention in prayer go, however, this isn’t a bad one. Indeed, it’s specifically approved in Scripture: “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). We should be grateful to our Father that we can assemble to worship Him in an environment where we are not threatened by civil authorities. It is right that we pray that we continue to enjoy this blessing.

But suppose, just for a moment, that it were not so. What if we suddenly lost the ability to worship “openly and unafraid”? If it meant you might be arrested, jailed, tortured, or even put to death for expressing your faith and for worshiping God according to His instructions, would you be deterred?

As privileged as we are in this regard, not all Christians throughout the centuries have benefited from such liberty. Almost as soon as the church was established, the apostles were arrested for preaching in Jesus the resurrection from the dead (Acts 4:1-3). At first, the Jewish leaders were content simply to threaten the twelve with punishment if they continued their activities (Acts 4:21). But the next time the apostles were brought up on charges, they were beaten (Acts 5:40).

What would you do if such were the case today? If the police seized you on the way to worship, bound you in handcuffs, and presented you to a judge who ordered you never to speak of Christ to anyone again, how would your behavior change? If you risked a beating by participating in worship services or Bible studies, where would you be Sunday morning and evening, and on Wednesday night?

Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, three men named Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah — or, as their Babylonian captors called them, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego — refused to renounce their fealty to the true and living God and worship a gold statue erected by King Nebuchadnezzar. The legal penalty for disobedience? Immolation in a furnace. The three men’s reply to Nebuchadnezzar was courageous and to the point: “If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18). Would you be that bold?

Some years later Darius, another king of Babylon, decreed that no one could pray to any deity except the king himself. The penalty for disobedience? Being fed alive to a pride of hungry lions. Notice what Daniel, a prophet and friend of the aforementioned three men, did in response: “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days” (Daniel 6:10). What would you do?

In the face of abuse and imprisonment, the apostles said, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Later, while facing execution, Paul affirmed, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Their courage in these circumstances — courage that enabled them to sing and pray even while shackled in a dungeon (Acts 16:24-25) — is an example to us.

In that same letter, Paul warned his apprentice, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). May it never be if the Lord wills, but if our persecution should ever take the form the apostles faced — if “openly and unafraid” were no longer possible — what are you prepared to do?