Follow Christ, Not the Crowd

As summer comes to a close and school starts back up, another season of our lives begins, with new people and new experiences that will undoubtedly thrust their way onto our paths. There will be choices to make and changes to adjust to, decisions to struggle over and ideas that will be brought to light as we interact and communicate with those around us. Each of us will be surrounded by our own crowd—the voice of friends, family, teachers, literary heroes, media. All of these will influence us in some fashion, whether we are aware of their effect or not. As followers of Christ, with so many influences and voices surrounding us, it is crucial to critically examine who or what is the hero in our lives and who or what we are following. Are we following Christ? Or the crowd?

Often times, negative peer pressure or the newest popular trend of our culture can influence us and pull us away from Christ. It doesn’t matter where we live, in America or anywhere else in the world, secular and non-Christian culture bombards us from every angle, forcing us to make choices to stand for Christ or the crowd.

If our focus is concentrated too much on the crowd and their words, Jesus and His words diminish. When the insight sought from those around us holds more weight than God’s Word, God's promises and commands lose root in our hearts. If we become lax and complacent, man-made ideas and meaningless pursuits can shape us to the point that we are unsure of what we believe and who we are following.

So my challenge to fellow Christians who are my age is that we need to be aware of what might be overtaking our allegiance to Christ and the things that take us away from following Him. And most importantly, we need to ground ourselves firmly on God's Word so that we are able to withstand the crowd and the influence they carry with them.