We’ve been pursuing a better view of the King of Kings whom we love and serve, to understand His character which would be to know His values, that we would be like Him, from beginning to end in honor of the Lamb with every step and breath.
Joseph Ivimey in 1821commented on a section of John Bunyan’s book, Pilgrim’s Progress written in 1678: he wrote, “Our author intimates that God sometimes communicates spiritual knowledge and heavenly joy by “dreams and visions of the night.” The Holy One “works all things after the counsel of His own will,” and employs whatever methods He pleases to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The effect produced by dreams must be brought to a test. Here is a good, short statement expressing a rule to test concepts and dreams by, that what leads to God, must have come from God, if God has sent us, He will go with us.”
Right there is an observation and insight worthy of a lot of contemplation, “That what leads to God, must have come from God.” It is a good test of what we believe, hear, and dream. Ask yourself, and be honest, Does what i hear, think, and believe lead to Christ? If indeed it does, then, friend, it must have come from God, for the Lord is the only One who can lead us to Himself. Let us think and explore these things not fearing our doctrines will fall apart. And if, upon investigation, our doctrines do come to pieces in our hands under the inspection of scripture, then they weren’t worthy of being held as the truth.
i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts, cool jazz and contemplative conversation, broadcast semi-live from the late evening cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River. Go out Hwy 25, turn right onto Old Field Road, make a left at the old stone bridge, actually, it’s the only way you can go, travel all the way to the end. When you’ve come to the end of yourself, there you’ll find a rural cafe of divine vision, righteously situated above a long green field by an impeccable tree line which borders things greater than themselves.
Beautiful words that roll, tumble and soar like a bird in the late afternoon, catching it’s daily bread.
There is an underlying attitude in the church which seems to feel that the truth will somehow suffer and die if we do a closer inspection of it, and nothing could be further from the truth. Augustine said “The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself.”
A lot of folks love to use phrases like, “in the sphere of our influence”, and it’s a good phrase which describes having the power to affect the development of hope and faith in people around us, although it has no formal authority. It’s also a phrase we use to make ourselves sound r-e-a-l-l-y spiritual and oh-so-well informed, giving us the appearance of high standing, having high dignity and being very influential.
Regardless of the influence we think we have, there is only one path to the Father and that is through Jesus Christ, who is the ONLY path to God. That which leads to God must have been sent by God. John 10:1 says, “the sheep enter by the door and if anyone climbs in any other way they are criminals and will be treated as such”. In vs7 Jesus said again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” and vs9, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” Jesus is the path to the Kingdom of God and he offers to each person an opportunity to return to their true roots of relationship with God.
After setting the stage, let’s get closer to our topic, and in order to do that let’s give the concept of “doctrine” a definition. A doctrine is “a belief or set of beliefs held and taught, it is our internal descriptive theology and ideology from which we operate and continue on” (my summary). On December 16, 1855, in his sermon titled “Heaven”, Charles Spurgeon spoke of four subtle doctrines which i think are worthy of discussion. The doctrines of influence, impulse, direction, and of instruction by the Holy Spirit. Four very important elements of how and why we do what we do that we would see Christ in us more clearly. This evening’s program is concerning the doctrine of influence. A bit brainy, but i think it’s a worthy discussion to have. Why? Because i don’t think, we the church, know why we do most of what we do nor why we think it’s a good idea. We generally have a fractured world view, and for many, the road ends with get saved and do right. We’re so busy accomplishing this or that, we’ve not explored God’s character in us or how He operates, nor are we very aware of how the gears of the Holy Spirit mesh in our heart.
i don’t want to focus on the people who use the doctrine of influence for the wrong reasons, although i must admit it’s difficult to speak of up without speaking of down, or right without speaking of wrong. i believe we need the contrast in order to understand better. Honestly, it’s just too easy to speak of all those who use their influence for evil, but i believe it’s better to look at those who use their influence for righteousness, how God raised them and used them so we may be better at positioning ourselves to walk the same path. i want to catch people doing good, not purposely set out to catch them doing evil. Remember: If God has sent us, He will go with us.
Here is a fact we should all remember, or as others would call it, a “sticky statement”: You are the company you keep. If we truly are the people who keep company with God, then we become like Him – moral, righteous, responsible, healed and whole. The more we abide in Him, the more we abide in Him. If we keep company with the world, its influence helps us become immoral, unrighteous, irresponsible, sick, sore, and divided, and that’s pretty unattractive once you’ve tasted what is good.
The influence of others on our lives is powerful. Don’t kid yourself, the constant downward pull of the worldly posture of those we keep company with is contagious. The number one reason for felons returning to prison is the influence of their circle of acquaintances, or friends, if you can even call someone who inspires you to more perfected criminal thinking a friend. It’s a big enough deal that even the parole office and the dept. of corrections insists newly released felons not associate with other known felons.
We all change, little by little, with every person we meet, and every season we live through. Although i don’t know how to measure the impact of this, i highly suspect that everyone i meet leaves some sort of mark on me. We may say it was just a short conversation filled only with words, but there is more to it than words, there is influence. We influence others with our faith, it may not seem like we have had an impact, but in the sense of sowing seed, every attitude lived and word expressed is a seed sown. There are people whom we do not allow in our lives because we know to allow them in would be to allow their influence on us, and we understand it would not be healthy for us or our families.
The value of influence on others is easily seen in long term friendships or marriages. When people have close and frequent conversations, the influence of one person on the other can actually be seen as, recognizable bits of one soul beginning to show in the other person’s nature. Look at the influence of a man and woman who have been married a long time, they sort of act like each other with similar ways of expressing themselves and even how they conclude decisions. Sometimes, the influence is so great, and this is just what i think, the influence is so great they even begin to look a little bit like each other. We see what was once two different individuals who have now become more a composite of both.
Who we admire and hold up as a hero has influence with us, so it’s not unreasonable to me to think we need to be careful who we allow to hold our places of admiration. Who are your hero’s?
When i was much, much younger i completely admired some icons in the music business. i read all the articles about them, had posters of them, listened exclusively to their music, and even tried to fashion my own music after their style of doing things. i eventually began to act like i thought they acted, to wear the clothes i thought they would wear, talk like i thought they would talk, and live like i thought they would live. i even drank and did drugs like i thought they did. Many of my life’s hero’s died, and thank you Lord, i didn’t feel compelled to follow after them even in death, they were important, but weren’t all THAT important.
There was a flavor of David in Jonathan, and a flavor of Jonathan in David. It was inevitable considering we tend to take on the attributes of those we keep company with.
Hope and faith keep their distance from selfish motives because they know that the company they keep influences their actions. Even when Mr. selfish-motivation openly cries, accusing hope and faith of not taking him seriously hoping to manipulate them, hope and faith know better than to allow such influence upon them.
To reiterate, another place i see incredible weight and impact on our lives is, i believe it’s the family unit, human or animal, the influence of close family and relatives is huge, for better or worse. By far and large family has a huge influence on us all, even when the family unit is divided, i believe we are simply left with people who have the nature of division living in them, brought about by what was modeled to them as children. Friends, we need Jesus to glue our hearts and souls back together.
C.J. Heck, published poet and writer said, ““We are all products of our environment; every person we meet, every new experience or adventure, every book we read, touches and changes us, making us the unique being we are.” Superseding the influence of the world, is the influence of God’s hand in our lives. If we are, indeed, those who keep company with God, then because He is the greater and the universe is the lesser, He is the greatest influence upon us.
Please consider this: What or who do you allow as your greatest influence, who or what do you give that kind of power to, that would change your life and character?
When Jesus walked the earth with the disciples, true, He was an incredible influence on everything around Him. But when He was crucified and rose from the dead, ahh … now He was and is at His greatest influence on everything, everyone, everywhere. If we imitate God it can simply be mechanical, being an imitator only requires that we change, but when we reflect Him, now it is something organic, born from our character, and our character is expressed in our habits. i believe in order to reflect the Lord, who is the ultimate influence upon us, we can’t just act similar. To reflect Him requires that He has imprinted Himself on us, and suddenly the highway to His city runs through our heart. Remember, that which leads to God must have been sent by God. Imitation is flattery and implies change, but true reflection is transformation, it is evidence of His signature upon us. 2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Those who surround themselves with the highest, will be those who transform into the highest, suddenly finding new music in their hearts. If the Lord is diluted a million times in the hearts of men and still has this kind of everlasting influence on us, how much more when we are fully in His presence before the great throne of God?
In the first chapter of John, Jesus encounters the first disciples, and i bet they were, initially, some pretty unspiritual, rough, guys. As the gospel story is told, if we follow the lives of the twelve who were called into the inner circle with Jesus, they spent time with Him, hour after hour, day after day. You can see their demeanor soften, they were changed by the One with the greatest influence on them, Jesus.
In Luke 9 they are wanting to call down fire from Heaven, but by the end of Luke’s report of the gospel story they are graceful and kind. Reading their story is like seeing buds open when winter becomes spring and the flowers come out. i can’t say they realized the change was happening, but over time they became different men. Even the world around them saw they were different.
Acts 4:13, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”
Peter and John weren’t simply being imitators, it was who they were because they were reflecting the signature of Christ which was upon them. They probably didn’t know how they had become who they were, transformed from rough men, to those who went around doing good. The transformation was obvious and unexplainable all together.
Here’s a sticky statement: it is impossible to allow ourselves to come into the consistent influence of Jesus Christ, and remain the same. i say, you’ll not leave here as you came, in Jesus name. Bound demented, depressed, sick or lame. For the Holy Ghost of Acts is still the same, you’ll not leave here as you came in Jesus name. i believe John found the influence of Jesus so astounding, He couldn’t even conceive of sin existing in the same place as the presence of God.
1 John 3:9,“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
We are powerful in Christ, and through prayer and our continual relationship with Jesus, we are changed and our transformation, not just imitation but transformation, influences the world around us to also be transformed. We have influence because He is the ultimate influence in the universe.
You may secretly think to yourself that you have no impact on anything. You may think that because you see no change in anyone or anything, you don’t make a difference. Who told you that you don’t make a difference, where did you get that? If your information doesn’t lead to God it probably wasn’t sent by God. If Jesus is in your life, you make a difference. Imagine, is it possible that you are all God says you are? Is it possible? Can you envision that? How does that look to you? Who are you going to believe, Jesus or your own dismal forebodings?
Have you ever gotten an email or a letter from someone or some company that just set your jaw tight? Your nostrils instantly flared, and your face felt like it flushed? You went to type a reply and you were so angry you spent as much time backspacing and re-writing as you did actually writing. But by the end of your scorching reply with it’s most vicious adjectives, you had softened a little, and you decided a simple, plain, non-volatile reply was actually the best thing, if you even dignified their message with a reply at all. Something or someone in your heart changed your mind. THAT is the influence of the Holy Spirit. By the time the day had gone by, and you have held the provoking message up to the Lord in prayer, mountains were moved in your heart and instead of blasting them, you found grace for them. For part of today you were only thinking of your offense, but the rest of the day God’s influence in you persuaded you toward a more righteous reply, and His wisdom stuck to you to not only not reply vicious-for-vicious, but to even play the rest of the movie as to how you were going to conduct yourself next time you see that person.
That influence is the evidence of His signature in you. We must be under His influence more than any other influence.
2 Corinthians 4:18, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
How do we, who live on this earth and see with earth eyes and have earth thoughts, how do we look at the things not seen. How do i see what i cannot see? Many scholarly individuals have some great explanations i suppose, but for me, He has opened my eyes to see what i cannot see, the patterns of the outlay and providence of His hands. If He did not open our eyes, they simply would not be opened. If He did not give us “wisdom that makes a difference”, we simply would not have any The Lord points out to us patterns of His grace where no eye would normally see it; patterns of His mercy in places where it is not obvious; patterns of His influence which are not noticeable except by the Holy Ghost vision within us. In His vision, things which are not seen are visible. Through faith we see in a divine mirror set at the right angle which opens our eyes to a life of higher vision.
Now back to the inflammatory message you received. At the time of the reading of the offensive message, all you could think about was yourself, your insult, and how wrong they were. But as the day wore on, something changed. A Godly attitude was overcoming selfish motivations, until all the defensiveness was won over by the goodness of God.
In those types of moments, in my heart there drips on me the drops of influence from the face of God, influencing me to right thought, right reply, and right action. His influence inspires me to bring into subjection my passions, to put my foot on the neck of pride, and to stop, in it’s tracks, the power of self-motivation, selfish ambition, and self-preservation. i can say my best ideas, my best visions and dreams, my best models, and the gifting to influence the world around me has totally come from Jesus more than any human character what-so-ever. We are truly influential because He is the ultimate influence.
In my heart of hearts i have a constant conscious awareness that from Christ i have adopted and reflect the thoughts and intentions which make the Kingdom of God a reality to me. Every thought which paves that road which is laid between God and myself has been sent by God to draw me closer to God. All the steps made, foreseen and unforeseen, lead to divine life in Christ. “In Christ” is a phrase powerful to own for ourselves. How did we get where we are? By what means did we see the unseen, and hear the unheard?
Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ is alive in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
All the righteous insight and understanding of our past and future are derived from the Savior. He’s not just some “higher power”, or reducing God to merely “the universe”, which is an unclear, vague, and poorly defined “something” out there. You know, just a “something but i don’t know what exactly” that is beyond our knowing. Jesus is not just “A” higher power” but “THE” highest power. My higher power, my great influence has a name, has specific ideas for specific reasons. He’s not a “that” but a “Him” and His name is Jesus. He is confident, confident in the power of His love to persuade and enable, to influence, every living thing to come into right relationship with Him. He is confident in the power of His love. All my concepts of the increase and momentum of grace came from Jesus, who is the path TO God and was sent BY God. He is that which leads to God, and only God can make a pathway to Himself.
Paul used all the influence in himself to persuade others to believe Jesus really, really, actually, actually is the Christ, the way, the truth, and life. He used everything he had and left nothing on the table. He grabbed “the Truth” with both hands and refused to let go even to his own death. The influence of Christ is powerful in us to influence the world around us. You are NOT powerless, a nothing, or a nobody.
When the discomfort of change washes over us and the afflictions of this life bludgeon their way into our lives, the influence of the Lord inspires us to have faith and trust in God to such a degree we can lie down and sleep through the hurricane that thunders in our ears. Maybe the overwhelming and continuous discomfort and grief we suffer due to loss points to the idea that maybe we had more trust and comfort in people and physical things than we did in Christ, and there’s a big “think about it” tagged on the end of that.
Psalm 46:2, “Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, the Lord is our refuge and strength.” The blood of Jesus is more powerful in us than our inclination to run away.
Even though we may be gripped by fear, the righteous stop their feet from running because they know there are things more important than fear and self-preservation. Life slaps us down but we reply “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Through murderous thieves and famine in the land, through the persistent grief of what did NOT happen to us, the power of God’s influence causes us to say, “…though the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no increase, yet will I trust in the Lord, and stay myself on the God of Jacob.” When persecution surrounds us, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, the righteous remain resolved and unmoved which are evidence of the Fruits of the Spirit in our lives.
You and i can use our influence for good or evil. Korah, the master of public opinion along with Dathan, and Abiram, used their influence to persuade Israel against God and Moses in Numbers 16. Needless to say, it didn’t go well with them, they became a sign to us even to today. They all, their families, servants, pets, and all their belongings perished in their sin. They become an example to everyone, forever, to be very careful about how we use our God given influence. Our impact and significance, our influence, isn’t amazing because we are so influential but because Christ is the power and authority of our ability to influence the world around us.
You are influential. Within the “sphere of your influence”, which God has given to you, within you is the power to exercise the Love of God to others. We are not free to do whatever we like, we are free to do the right thing, and it is always the right time to do the right thing. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…” Think about it.
Dinesh D’Souza points out: “This is our culture’s powerful emphasis on compassion, on helping the needy, and on alleviating distress even in distant places. If there is a huge famine or reports of genocide in Africa, most people in other cultures are unconcerned. They see ‘the tears of strangers only as water.’ But here in the West we rush to help. Part of the reason why we do this is because of our Christian assumptions. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not believe this. They held a view quite commonly held in other cultures today which is, yes, that is a problem, but it is not our problem. However paradoxical it seems, people who believed most strongly in Christ did the most to improve the situation of people living this life.”
As a believer, your influence impacts all human life in that our concept of universal human rights and equality comes exclusively from the biblical idea that all people are created in the image of God, but only those who believe in the resurrected Christ also have His reflection. In Genesis 1:26 scripture says He made us with His image AND His likeness or reflection, with “image” being an outer similarity, and “likeness” being an inner similarity, or reflection. A Christian document called the Didache, meaning the Teaching of the Twelve Disciples which is dated from the late first century or early second century, contained instructions against abortion, instructed others concerning marriage, and Godly ethics. Your Godly influence inspires a pro-life view, and teaches that slavery is wrong. Our education today stands on the shoulders of early Christians, not to mention that the same influence is visible in our work ethic, and especially in art, music, and literature. Friends, the Lord has given us the power of His influence and we are powerful to affect every facet of our society.
i’m Social Porter and this is Outposts. This program is brought to you semi-live from the late evening, cascading banks of the Ockluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean over the river’s edge, and every evening is pleasant.
Godly influence, it’s real and alive in you, it’s time to change the planet. Volunteer at a food bank or help the hungry, naked, clueless and blind and shine like the sun in Jesus name, today, just like you did yesterday.
Pray for your neighbors, and read your Bible, it’s time to change the planet. Amen? Yea, and amen!