Empty Lifestyles
Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. (1 Peter 4:4)
While we may live in this foreign land, far from our ultimate home, we live for the will of God. As a result, there is a marked contrast between our lifestyle and the lifestyle of the people around us who do not know the Lord. And when we don’t partake of that lifestyle, we are considered “weird.”
Make no mistake about it. If we don’t participate in that lifestyle, you and I are weird. We are really weird! And they notice it. Again, Peter’s words are as relevant as this morning’s newspaper. Look how he describes the reaction of the unsaved world.
And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them in the same excesses of debauchery, and they slander you. (1 Peter 4:4 NASB)
Talk about the relevance of Scripture! Peter sounds like he is alive today! Any lifestyle of restraint, no matter how tactful we try to be, makes unbelievers uncomfortable. Sometimes it makes them defensive and angry, causing them to lash out at us as though in living our lifestyle we were judging theirs. I experienced this among fellow marines on numerous occasions—those who spent their lives in a realm of lustful drives and carousals and one drinking party after another. We see the same thing today in the after-hours of the corporate world. It’s all part of the so-called “happy hour.”
Beyond their discomfort and defensiveness, of course, is the inner emptiness they live with, day in and day out, the natural result of a life of lust and debauchery. What emptiness there is when the party’s over and everybody goes home! They’re left with the horrors of the sunrise and a head-splitting hangover, the guilt and even some shame as they crawl out of somebody else’s bed, wondering what disease they might have gotten this time. And there’s always that dark-brown taste in their mouth.
It’s a horrible lifestyle! I don’t care how beautiful the commercials look, it stinks! It doesn’t last an hour, and it’s anything but “happy!” But if they haven’t any power to overcome it, the only thing they have to look forward to is the next “happy hour.” And if they play the music loud enough and if there’s enough booze and drugs, they think they can drown their troubles. Another lie of the Enemy. He’s got a thousand of them.
Taken from Hope Again by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 1996 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
