Hello, Beloved Reader! I’m Faith. Thanks for visiting me today.

Before we get started, I want you to take a look at Proverbs 1:10-19 and James 1:12-18.

I wanted to talk today about something that everyone goes through. Adults, teens, and children alike, go through this and sometimes it’s hard to turn away.

What I’m talking about is peer pressure.

The internet defines peer pressure as “influence from members of one’s peer group.”

You can have a child tempting another with stealing a cookie when their mother told them specifically no dessert before dinner. You can have a teen offering one of his non-smoking friends a cigarette, promising not to tell a soul. I heard a story about a man presenting another who did not drink with an alcoholic drink multiple times, but at each time he refused. These are examples of bad peer pressure.

Temptation is a nasty thing. Lying in wait around street corners, patiently awaiting your arrival so it can say, “Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause.” And it doesn’t even have to be necessarily huge bad things. It can be little things, too.

But here’s what you have to remember.

God has the ability to look at each and every person as if no one else in the world exists. He can look at us all as individuals, and wants us to have an individual relationship with Him.

That being the case, He doesn’t compare us to anyone else. Likewise we don’t need to compare with others either. “Jake only fasts once a week. I don’t think I need to fast three times a week.” “Carol doesn’t pray five times a day. I don’t think I need to.”

Don’t give in to the temptations of life, or enticements of the devil. 

You should look at yourself and say, “What do I need to do to get closer to God? What can I do to strengthen my walk with Him.”

It’s just you and God in this instance. What other people do doesn’t matter. It’s what you do that helps or hinders your relationship with your Heavenly Father.

–Faith Cross