INFLUENCED

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:1-3

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Think I’m on pretty solid ground to be able to make this statement.

From the very beginning of our lives, we are influenced.

As soon as we discover we can do more than be carried around, first crawling and then walking, our parents influence us in regard to what is right and wrong. This coaching continues all the way to where we become adults and move beyond our parent’s purview.

Along the way, something else happens though. The more we interact with other people outside of the home, we see that there are other sources of influence in the world, some good and some bad.

We meet friends and find their values differ from our own. They may see something as appropriate despite you being taught it isn’t and try to get you to do as they do.

In the classroom during any one school week, we receive instruction from multiple teachers, each of which has a powerful platform to influence us with knowledge and often ideologies. If you don’t believe this, you haven’t been watching the news lately as parents raise concerns about how their children are being influenced in school asserting that there’s not just poor influence happening but flat out indoctrination.

As we become adults, we are influenced by people we know and work with. We are also strongly impacted by the media and the opinions presented there. Unfortunately, it’s rare to find a network that is balanced in what they offer. Rather, we find offerings either very liberal or very conservative and audiences that align with the network’s values.

The world offers a lot of influence but so too does the Lord and the enemy, Satan. There’s always a battle raging within ourselves with regard to which influential source will win out. Here’s the way Paul put it:

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.”

“As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” Romans 7:15-23

Paul talks about a struggle we are all too familiar with, a struggle grounded in the matter of spiritual influence. He wanted to do right all the time. He desired to live in a way that honored God. His intentions were solid but there was one real problem.

Satan had his own intentions, intentions to use sin to move Paul away from where he wanted to be. How far did Satan move Paul? To the place where he said this:

“What a wretched man I am!” Romans 7:24

Indeed, this is Satan’s end goal as he seeks to influence people to turn from God and His righteousness toward sin and wickedness. He wants to drag everyone into the pit of spiritual despair.

In regard to the Corinthians, Paul was concerned they would turn back toward the “mute idols” they worshiped before committing themselves to believe in Jesus and follow His ways. The way to avoid this was to allow the Holy Spirit to be the chief influencer. The Christians in Corinth needed to allow the Holy Spirit to guide them and they weren’t to allow anyone to influence them that wasn’t under the power of the Holy Spirit themselves.

This guidance still applies to us today as we are immersed in a world where there are many variations of sin that Satan wants to use to pull us away from the Lord. As it was in Paul’s day, we need to embrace the “gifts of the Spirit” allow Him to influence is in all the right ways, the ways that are pleasing to God, the ways that lead us toward holiness and a place where we are more and more set apart from the world.  

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com