DAILY DEVOTIONAL – January 31, 2020
“Apply the Right Pressure”
Prayer: Heavenly Father, You have graciously given us the firm foundation of Truth in Your Son our Lord Jesus Christ. By Your grace and power, keep us firm and steadfast in the True faith to life everlasting. Amen.
Scripture: Galatians 1:6-10
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Devotional – “Apply The Right Pressure”
In this passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, Paul is expressing his frustration and amazement that the believers there would so quickly abandon the True message of salvation in Jesus that they received from him.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like Paul did? You turn on the television and watch the news, listen to some political debate or hear of some new bill or supreme court ruling that has passed and wonder, “How in the world have things gotten so out of hand? Have people lost their minds?” Well, according to Scripture, yes.
As we draw ever closer to the final day of God’s judgement, Scripture makes clear that the minds and dispositions of humanity as a whole will fall further into depravity. As Paul says in Romans 1, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools…they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.”
How is it that the Galatians so quickly abandoned the truth? How is it that society as a whole seems to be free falling into depravity? Much of it is found in social pressure, or what is commonly referred to as peer pressure. I’m not trying to over simplify the issue, but we do see time and again in Scripture (like we do here in Galatians 1) that when believers are tempted to abandon the truth, or when people and society as a whole are tempted to go against their conscience (Romans 2), there seems to always be a group of powerful group of people present and working hard to assert their influence that is contrary to God’s word.
God intended us and created us for fellowship with each other, however because of sin, the community for which we were created can now prove to be a dangerous liability if we are not surrounding ourselves with the right people. Many passages in Scripture warn us against keeping bad company and exhort us to safeguard our minds by making sure the people we allow people who love God and keep His Word at the forefront to have influence on our hearts and minds.
Proverbs 13:20 – Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
1 Corinthians 15:33 – Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
Psalm 1:1-2
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Being that God created us for community, not just our thoughts but even our physical bodies can be adversely affected by negative social pressures and bad company; causing us to do things we would not and know we should not do.
In 2005, neuroscientist Gregory Berns conducted a series of high tech experiments to measure how people responded cognitively to societal pressures. For the experiment Berns created social groups of 5 people that were tasked with looking at a series of objects. Each group was then asked to decide if the series of objects were “all the same” or “different”. Unbeknownst to a single volunteer in each group, Berns pre-arranged to have 4 out of the 5 “volunteers” coached and unanimously give fake answers to some of the questions. The coached volunteers were to all agree on an answer that was very clearly wrong. All subjects were hooked up to live brain scanners while the experiment was underway, but Berns was really only interested in measuring the neurological and cognitive response of the one guinea pig volunteer who was faced with the challenge of either insisting that the other 4 volunteers were clearly wrong, or succumbing to social pressure and agreeing with their wrong answer. What were the results of this experiment? Even though the answers of the 4 planted volunteers were obviously wrong, on average, 40 percent of the time the guinea pig volunteers gave into the social pressure and agreed with their answers.
Most fascinating about the study, was Berns’ observation that social pressure activates the part of the brain devoted to spatial perception, revealing that the desire to fit in when under social pressure actually changes people’s physiological perception of reality.
As science continues to further prove the Truth of God’s Word, and as this world continues in its depravity, it is increasingly important that we intentionally and regularly surround ourselves with true believers who, with us, will stand alongside the Apostle Peter who said boldly while on trial before the religious authorities in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men.”
Too often today people say, “I don’t need to go to church to worship God or love Jesus.” True. But the Jesus we love and worship regularly attended church, and the God to whom we are all accountable commands us in Hebrews 10:22-25, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
Draw near and stay close to the fellowship of believers my friends. Make church a priority. Develop a relationship with your pastor. If you don’t have a close network of Christian friends where you can engage in relationships of loving accountability, find one, and make time each day to be in the Word of God, know the Word of God and pray that God would give us all the strength of faith to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and stand firm on the rock of Truth who is Jesus Christ.
Thanks for spending time with me today in God’s Word, and remember, God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
