Ever wonder how you would stand up under a great religious persecution? Most of us probably have. We know that it's happened before and that it'll happen again. Will we stand or fall? In some parts of the world, our Christian brothers and sisters suffer persecution even now. There are those who risk everything, including their lives and the lives of their families to practice as Christians.
While most Christians today take our religious freedom for granted, there is a hiddden persecution that we may not recognize as such - yet it can be as fatal to our success or failure as open persecution. It is called Peer Pressure.
While peer pressure is generally recognized as a serious threat to our youth, we are all subject to its devastation, in many cases without even being aware of it. For the Devil, it's the thin edge of the wedge that he drives into our lives to seperate us from the values of the Lord.
How many events do we attend where behaviour is contrary to our values; how many activities do we partake in that we know, if we consider, have a detrimental effect on our standing as Christians? How much of the media hype of entertainment and advertising sucks us in, where our herd instinct takes over and we happily cross lines because - well, what harm can it do?
Having some fun is not a sin, having a good laugh is no sin; but when we get sucked into the wrong kind of fun, the wrong kind of conversation because we don't want to fall out of the group, we can find ourselves developing wrong habits and unconsciously taking a path we shouldn't be walking on. We don't even realize it until we wake up one day and find that we've strayed far from the path intended for us, and we have to start the long process of finding our way back. All too often, painfully.
Peer pressure can be a dangerous weapon in the Enemy's hands to make us feel dissatisfied with our lives and particularly with what we have or don't have - compared to others. That dissatisfaction can easily lead to anger and misery, which have no place amidst the Fruits of the Spirit. It can spread like a spiritual cancer, quickly overpowering the peace, love, joy, humility and dedication to God that we once knew.
The overt religious persecution is a threat that is visible and enforces us to confront it and ourselves. The hidden threat is the one that we don't see and we avoid having to confront it, until the wedge is driven in so deeply that it is only with a great deal of pain that we have to claw our way back to the right path, bleeding and in spiritual tatters.
Let us be aware, therefore, of the inevitable onslaughts of the enemy each day, and remain safe in the armour of the Lord and the Fruits of the Holy Spirit, regardless of what our friends may think or what we may be missing out on. We are left in the world, not removed from it; but we are left in the world to reflect the glory of God to the unbelieviers, not to join them in their pursuits.
May God be with us and not only strengthen us, but grant us joy in our daily victories. Jesus is always with us. Let us rejoice in Him more than in anything with which the Devil's society may tempt us.
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