To Run or Not To Run

I remember a time when a friend and I were at a Jr High basketball game, and instead of being inside watching the game, for some reason we were outside walking around the school property by ourselves.  We weren’t doing anything wrong, just talking and hanging out.  While we were out there, a police car drove by very slowly.  Suddenly, my friend just bolted away as fast as he could.  

I didn’t know why - like I said, we weren’t doing anything wrong - but because he took off, I found myself suddenly running away with him.  I heard the police officer holler for us to stop.  So I stopped and walked over to him, but my friend was a lot farther than I.  The officer asked why we ran, and I told him I just ran because my friend ran.  The officer proceeded to tell me to never run from an officer.  

My friend obviously had a guilty conscious, so he just assumed that he was in trouble for something.  How many times have you felt like going along with the crowd, even though you feel that you shouldn’t?  

A good rule of thumb is that if majority of the population is doing it, it probably is not right.  When we accept Jesus as our Lord, the Holy Spirit begins working in us right away.  He teaches us and can help us know right from wrong in ways we didn’t before.  It’s like a light has been turned on inside of us.  So we have an inward witness that the world does not have.

We can’t expect unsaved masses to fall in line with what we believe because they do not have that inward witness.  This inward witness sets us apart.  That is why when everyone else is running one direction, we can see that it is not a wise choice and choose not to follow.  When my friend took off, I knew I had no reason to run.  It was my choice to follow or stay.  I made a wrong choice at the time because I was young, but I learned my lesson that day.  Don’t follow the crowd, but instead follow that inward witness.

Ephesians 4:17-24 (NIV)
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:17-24 (MSG)
17-19 And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.
20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.