Sunday, November 4, 2012

Jesus wasn't influenced by peer pressure

As I have been reading through the gospels while keeping my focus on what Jesus did and how I should then act to follow in His steps, I read this story:

"At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?  He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.  Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?  I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.  If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.  For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"

 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?  How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other.  But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus." Matthew 12:1-14

The lesson that I learned from this passage was that Jesus did what we right no matter what peer pressure He had to do otherwise. Peer pressure can be hard to deal with especially at various stages in our lives but we can remember that Jesus dealt with it too.

 So go out and do what is right - no matter what everybody around you might be saying!

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