Acts 5:29
29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. …”
A very smart guy named Charles Taylor talks about something called a “social imaginary”. The concept is that the society around us deeply affects our thinking whether we realize it or not. It may seem like something you grow out of, and sure, as a teenager you tried a lot more consciously to be cool, but it’s a constant force that sways us all. The question isn’t if society affects your thinking, it’s where and how much it affects you.
Yet, we must obey God rather than man. Looking danger in the eye and completely disregarding what the spiritual and political leaders of the day mandated, the Apostles obeyed God rather than man. They were beaten for it, but daily, in both public and private venues, they took their knocks to make the Kingdom go forward. Where in your life is there sin that needs to be strangled or obedience that needs to be performed even though it will be incredibly unpopular?
Prayer prompt: Lord, bend my will to Yours as I swim against the current of human opinion.