We’ve been talking to our Sunday School class about peer pressure. They’re a bunch of middle school kids, but I told them that peer pressure never goes away. Even as adults were constantly pulled to worry about what others think and to do things that please the crowd. We also discussed how the longer it takes you to do something that God asks you to, the harder it is to overcome peer pressure that wants you to do something else. I don’t know why there’s this thing in us that wants to go along with the crowd, but it’s in there for most people. There’s a fear that people will make fun of us or reject us if we don’t go along. However, the road to Heaven is straight and narrow with only a few who are willing to not go with the crowd down the broad and wide path to destruction. We must learn to obey God no matter what the crowd thinks.
In Mark 14, Jesus was about two days away from being crucified. He was having dinner at someone’s house when a woman came into the room. She had an alabaster jar full of expensive perfume with her. Quickly she broke open the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. The disciples and those at the table began to pressure her and scold her saying she just wasted that bottle. They told her she should have sold it and helped the poor. She didn’t try to defend herself as the crowd attacked her for her act of obedience. That’s when Jesus stepped in and spoke up. He rebuked them for shaming her and said that she had done what she could and had pre-anointed Him for burial. Then He said that wherever the Gospel would be preached throughout the world, her act of obedience would be remembered and discussed.
In Acts 5:29 Peter told the leaders, “We must obey God rather than men” (ESV). They were trying to pressure him to quit preaching in Jesus name. You may not be brought before a court like Peter, but you will be asked to obey God in front of other people. They may try to convince you that what you’re doing is a waste or try to shame you, but we must remember that it’s more important to do what God asks. At the end of your life, you will stand before God and give account. I think of that when I’m struggling between obeying and worrying about what others think. It’s more important to please God instead of others. I don’t know what God is asking you to do. I don’t know what forms fear and rejection will take to try to stop you. However, we must push past that fear and act quickly like the woman with the perfume. When we do, it will release a beautiful smell to Heaven that God will breathe in and He will defend us from the peer pressure.
Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 