What are the influences in my life? Good question. When I think about it, I can easily be influenced by a lot of things in life. There are countless things every day that can easily cause us to think one way or the other. The scary thing is we probably often don’t even realize when we are being influenced by something until we take time to think about it.
Now, I normally think that I’m not influenced by TV commercials and things like that. Actually, most of the time I think, “Why do all these companies waste all this money on TV time? I don’t think they’re getting any return on their investment, as far as I’m concerned.” Then there are those few times when I recognize that their tactic is working. Once in a while, I may not know what to eat for dinner. But then I see a Pizza Hut commercial and decide to go there. Then I’m like, “Oh, man! That actually worked!” Those advertisers are sneaky, aren’t they? I think to myself, “I’m really not that gullible that I’m going to let a commercial influence me.” Then, without even realizing it, someone suggests, “Oh, you should go do this.” And I’m like, “Duh—OK.”
I don’t know. How many times am I being influenced and not even realizing it? And if I am, then what am I being influenced by? I mean, it doesn’t just come down to commercials. What about that random comment someone makes about my hair, or lack thereof? Do I let that bother me? Do I all of a sudden think about calling ‘Hair Club for Men’? Maybe. But do I really want to let someone else’s random comment have that much impact on me? Maybe I should live my life not depending so much on what other people think. Maybe I can just make my own informed decision. Take that ‘TV commercials’, and ‘person who made that random comment about my hair’! That felt good. Pretty liberating.
So, if this happens to me a lot, maybe it’s important for me to recognize when, why and by whom I’m being influenced. At least then I can make a judgment about whether it’s a good influence. Being conscious of what’s influencing me is the key. I think it can be done if I pay attention.
Of course, influences aren’t bad if they’re positive. Having people who encourage you in your life is positive, like family members and friends. Hopefully, most of them are encouragers in our lives. They can impact our lives so that we end up moving ourselves in a positive direction. And it’s a good thing we do have these positive influences. We need that to help counteract all the negative ones we experience every day. There’s enough negativity in the world and we should be positive, and be around positive influences as much as possible.
How do we look at influences from a Biblical perspective? Well, we do know that the Bible talks about the importance of people in our lives. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” This is talking about how when we have other believers in our lives, we can actually help each other become better. We can not only encourage one another, but we can also admonish one another and sharpen a friend’s understanding of God and His word. Our words can be the positive influence someone else is looking for.
I hear this all the time, “I’m tired, I’m sore, I don’t feel good but my doctors says all my blood test are normal.” There are two reasons for this and they are getting so tired that do viagra 25 mg not need to give up by the wayside. If you are taking protease inhibitors, viagra discount online such as for the treatment of HIV, you should NOT use KAMAGRA tablets. Their price is viagra levitra cialis lower but the quality is rather high. How about a drinks machine that comes complete with facial recognition and will recommend a beverage based on your mug? Almost positive cute-n-tiny.com viagra for women price it would recommend a glass of white wine for me, how’s that for a very long time.
Here’s, actually, an example of people being influenced in Galatians. Here are Paul’s words. In Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” For us to understand this, we need to understand the context of this verse. Here, in Galatians, Paul was concerned because the Galatians were actually being influenced by the Judaizers. These people were trying to add Jewish laws to the Gospel message of Salvation by Grace. Some of them were apparently starting to believe it, because this prompted Paul’s writing this book to the Galatians. Paul’s message was for them to be steadfast in the belief of God’s grace and not to be bound up by these laws. Christ had come to make us free. He knew that the law couldn’t accomplish what Christ accomplished on the Cross. The law had it’s purpose; as Paul puts it, though, the law was our ‘schoolmaster’ to bring us unto Christ, so that we can be justified by faith. And once the faith has come we are no longer under that schoolmaster. We focus on Jesus and His work on the Cross.
This is actually a good example of positive influence and negative influence at the same time. I wonder, in this instance, if the Galatians realized what was happening? Or, if they were like me watching the TV commercial and didn’t even realize how they were being influenced. This can often happen in our church even today. We can start out with the right intent, but then things slowly get added to what we believe without a conscious awareness of it. It’s a good thing they had Paul there to wake them up to the truth. I guess, in a sense, Paul was being that iron to the Galatians.
Paul did this a lot, though. It seems like a lot of his writings were to not only encourage, but to correct people, and the various churches back in the right direction. We can be like this in other people’s lives and other people can be this in our lives, promoting positive, Godly change for them and ourselves.
Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend
Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”