Peer Pressure sent packing - Mr. Duke Jeyaraj

Peer pressure. Each day it jabs at you as you rub shoulders with your pals either at High School, or at college. Time and again it nudges you as you walk hands on shoulder with your buddies at College.

Repeatedly it bumps into you as you jostle with the people at your work-spot. There are friends in your world who pressure you, prod you to do things that you pretty well know won’t please the Lord. ‘A sip of Rum won’t rub away your saintliness,’ your associate remarks in an attempt to make you somehow join him in drinking. ‘What’s your opinion about him? Come on speak up!’ your mates coax you to join their round table conference where nothing but backbiting and gossip are going on. ‘You really haven’t lived if you haven’t yet made a visit to this salacious site,’ your Internet-insane chum says cajoling you to copy his porn-site visiting habit.

Well, don’t tell me that you haven’t faced peer pressure in your life and existence. You certainly have. And absolutely will. Hey listen – Jesus actually predicted that each of his followers would encounter peer pressure! He did not preach, ‘If the world hates you…’ Instead He preached, ‘When the world hates you…’ (Jn.15:18). Did not our Lord say, ‘Everyone will hate you because of your allegiance to me. But those who endure to the end will be saved’ (Mt.10:22)

Can we not say that on the basis of this verse handling peer pressure (among other sorts of pressures) is a matter that is so important it concerns our eternal salvation? Did you know that there is a direct command in the Bible that we must not bow to peer pressure? The Bible does not mince words when it says, ‘Do not join a crowd that intends to do evil.

When you are in the witness stand, do not be swayed by the opinion of the majority’ (Ex 23:2). What do we do when our buddies burden us to do things that our Master won’t have us do? Clueless? Got no answers? Well in God’s Word we certainly have some clues and answers to this perennial problem of youth. Want to hear them? Make! Making Jesus as our best pal ever is the best defense against the lures of Peer Pressure! Wondering how? Take a good look at Peter and you get to know. See Peter closely and this lesson will sink into your system.

There were times when Peter and Jesus were close. Peter knew that it was a foregone conclusion that Jesus was going to be forced to carry the cross and that he would finally be crucified on it. So in his heart he too decided that he would ‘deny himself and take up his cross’ and follow His Master just as His Master taught them to (Mk 8:34). That was why – I suppose – he flatly said, ‘Lord, I am ready to go to prison with you, and even to die with you!’ when Jesus predicted that one of the twelve disciples would betray him (Lk.22:33).

He felt that close and committed to Jesus. But then as we pretty well know Peter ended up denying Jesus. Three times out. What went wrong? Simple. Mathew records that when Peter was following Jesus he was following him from ‘far behind’ after his arrest (Mt.26:58). Mathew – I believe meant more than a geographical distance. He meant there was a spiritual distance between Jesus and Peter.

He was drifting away from a warm and wonderful relationship with his Master. Just 11 verses and a short while later, Peter ended up denying Jesus (Mt.26:69-75). This was the message that crystallized in my heart as I kept reading Mt.26:58-75: ‘If you follow Jesus from a distance you would soon end up doing things that would displease him.’ If only Peter had maintained his closeness with his Master he would have withstood the pressure put on him as he sat in the courtyard with those who were not clearly in sympathy with Jesus.

From the way they eyed him suspiciously, Peter knew he would be in trouble if he admitted that he was indeed Jesus’ most outspoken disciple. Peter was hanging out with a crowd hostile to Jesus without being close to Jesus. A potentially deadly-combination that ultimately bust Peter’s spiritual fuse and rocked his commitment to Christ. The result was predictable: he ended up swearing that he did not know the Man who in his very first recorded sentence to Peter in Mathew’s Gospel told Peter to make him known (‘Come, be my disciples, and I will show you how to fish for people!’ – Mt. 4:19).

Have you made Jesus your best friend as yet? Well if there is anyone who can be called ‘a Friend who sticks closer than a brother,’ it’s got to be Jesus (Pr. 18:24). Only sin will increase the distance between Him and you (Isa. 59:2). And if you ask Him to forgive your sins and stick close to him, the pressure from your pals to do things that displease Him will dwindle away, I bet.

How do we get close to Jesus? By spending a lot of time with him. By lapping up His Word hungrily. By taking deliberate time-off from our busy worlds and standing still in his presence to have heart-to-heart talks with Him. If we inculcate this habit of constantly enjoying a close walk with our Maker, there will come a point in our life when we will automatically say what the Psalmist said, ‘One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches.

I’d rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin!’ (Psalms 84:10, Peterson Version). In summary, if you fall in love with Jesus chances are that you will not fall in line with the lousy ways of your filthy friends! Break! In order to escape the deadly effects peer pressure can have on our lives there are some friendships (actually fellowships) we must break. That is right – destroy outright! But I can almost hear you arguing, ‘But even Jesus was called as a friend of sinners! – wasn’t he?’ Of course, he was! But his closest pals were never the cheating tax-collectors and the captivating prostitutes but Peter, James and John – three men who left their all to follow Him and later would not hesitate to die for Him! Jesus tried to lift the sinners to His level in the times He spent with them – He never stooped to their level. Also, we must note that He reserved his thick friendship only for His disciples. In fact he met them ‘often’ in an olive grove – something He did not do with his ‘sinner’ friends (Jn.18:2). Let’s send peer pressure packing by following his personal example.