Everyone on the planet has a circle of influence, believe it or not. The shut in has the people who bring them groceries and other necessities. The prisoner has fellow inmates, penpals, as well as the staff at the prison. Each person's circle of influence looks different but we all have one. Our circle of influence include those who influence us and who we influence. For the shut in, if the person delivering food is not a nice person, do you think they would be more likely to retreat further or be ready to emerge sooner? I believe it would cause them to want to retreat more. If the person delivering the food, however was loving and kind, I believe it could cause the person start to see there is more out there than they at once thought.
So the question I am posing my readers today is: Are we influencing people, or are we being influenced?
I don't know about you, but I want to be the person who influences others. I want people to see God in and through my life and I want that to influence them towards Christ. Is this the case every day? To be completely honest, no. When I am having a bad day I definitely do not want people to be influenced by that. If I am angry, I definitely do not want people to be influenced by that either. As a human being I am going to have good days and bad days, the part of my bad days that I want to influence others is how I recover. Typically when I recover I get deeper in the Bible and find myself spending even more time with God. This recovery is what makes the bad days worthwhile. Do not get me wrong I do not like the bad days and I would love to live in a world where those bad days never come, but in my present reality this is not the case.
So the question I am posing my readers today is: Are we influencing people, or are we being influenced?
I don't know about you, but I want to be the person who influences others. I want people to see God in and through my life and I want that to influence them towards Christ. Is this the case every day? To be completely honest, no. When I am having a bad day I definitely do not want people to be influenced by that. If I am angry, I definitely do not want people to be influenced by that either. As a human being I am going to have good days and bad days, the part of my bad days that I want to influence others is how I recover. Typically when I recover I get deeper in the Bible and find myself spending even more time with God. This recovery is what makes the bad days worthwhile. Do not get me wrong I do not like the bad days and I would love to live in a world where those bad days never come, but in my present reality this is not the case.
How do you influence others around you? Some people think that they do not influence anyone, you would be wrong. When you gossip, you influence others in thinking along the same lines as the gossip you are repeating. It could change the way people think about another person, and even their relationship as a whole. When you say a judgement about someone once again, you are influencing the thoughts of those listening. We influence others more through our words and our actions. So what are we saying? What are we doing? People are always watching, what do we want them to emulate, how do we want to influence them. Whether or not it is our intention we are still an influence to those around us.
The other side of the coin is others influence us. An experiment was done a while back and the person conducting the experiment looked up at the sky and kept looking up to see how many people would look up too. It was truly surprising how many people looked up as well. This person was not looking at anything yet people were influenced by his action. I am pretty sure I would have been one of the ones looking up, even if it was to make sure something was not about to fall on my head. This may seem like no big deal but if someone can influence me with such a small insignificant action how much am I being influenced by everything else?
Jesus was a great influence on the people of his time. Jesus was also not influenced by religious leaders, evil people, not even by Satan himself. How was he able to do it?
He spent a lot of time in prayer. He was influenced by his Father, God himself. This influence gave him the strength to influence others without allowing anyone else to influence him. Jesus was the perfect example of what a Christian walk should look like. This is what we all strive towards. We need to spend a lot of time in prayer, in order to keep ourselves from being influenced by others. Jesus also surrounded himself with people who had a like vision as him, his disciples. We too need a strong group of friends who share our beliefs, who can help us keep going when times get tough. If we hang out with the wrong people all of the time, we slowly begin to see life from their perspective and we lose sight of our own beliefs. Does this mean we spend no time with non-Christians? No. Jesus spent quite a bit of time with people from all walks of life but he spent more time with his disciples and he spent the most time with God.
There was a time in my life when I spent more time with non-Christians than I did with my Christian friends and it impacted my life negatively. I spend more time with Christians now and I feel stronger when I do hang out with non-Christians. We are always influenced by those we spend the most time with, keep this in mind when choosing where to spend your time.
The other side of the coin is others influence us. An experiment was done a while back and the person conducting the experiment looked up at the sky and kept looking up to see how many people would look up too. It was truly surprising how many people looked up as well. This person was not looking at anything yet people were influenced by his action. I am pretty sure I would have been one of the ones looking up, even if it was to make sure something was not about to fall on my head. This may seem like no big deal but if someone can influence me with such a small insignificant action how much am I being influenced by everything else?
Jesus was a great influence on the people of his time. Jesus was also not influenced by religious leaders, evil people, not even by Satan himself. How was he able to do it?
He spent a lot of time in prayer. He was influenced by his Father, God himself. This influence gave him the strength to influence others without allowing anyone else to influence him. Jesus was the perfect example of what a Christian walk should look like. This is what we all strive towards. We need to spend a lot of time in prayer, in order to keep ourselves from being influenced by others. Jesus also surrounded himself with people who had a like vision as him, his disciples. We too need a strong group of friends who share our beliefs, who can help us keep going when times get tough. If we hang out with the wrong people all of the time, we slowly begin to see life from their perspective and we lose sight of our own beliefs. Does this mean we spend no time with non-Christians? No. Jesus spent quite a bit of time with people from all walks of life but he spent more time with his disciples and he spent the most time with God.
There was a time in my life when I spent more time with non-Christians than I did with my Christian friends and it impacted my life negatively. I spend more time with Christians now and I feel stronger when I do hang out with non-Christians. We are always influenced by those we spend the most time with, keep this in mind when choosing where to spend your time.