For This Reason

It's time to quit.

Peter says (1 Peter 4:3) "For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do–living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry."

For Christ-followers, the time has come to be done with sin. Enough time has been wasted already, going the wrong direction, doing things that only take me farther from God. That's what unbelievers do, and it's what they'll pressure me to do: "They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you." (v4)

Peer pressure, in this world, will be to sin. It's that invitation to go for drinks after work on Friday. It's the suggestion that I already pay too much in taxes, so cutting corners on my return is a good idea. It's the water cooler talk that bashes bosses and the buddy talk that bashes wives. It's the approval given to those who make fun of the weak, who take advantage of the slow, and who cut with sarcasm instead of nurture with kindness.

And if I don't go along, the world will mock, Peter says. And oh, how I hate being mocked.

But there's a good reason to heed Peter on this, and it's found in verses 5&6: "But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit."

So it's time for me to think before I do what the world does. Those movies look like a lot of fun, and so do the parties. A little fling can look harmless, especially if no one finds out. Focusing on building wealth is only pragmatic. At least, if I think like the world does. 

But Peter says it's time to stop trying to fit in. It's time to quit living as though this life were the point. It isn't, and if I want eternity to mean anything at all, it's time to be done with a lot of things.