Week Six, 2025
Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I also have become as you are. Galatians 4:12
Influence is the power to have an important effect on someone. If someone influences someone else, they are changing a person or thing in an indirect but important way.
We have all been influenced by other people or movements and not always in a positive way. My parents had the most and earliest influence on me. I accepted what they believed. Later, the influence came from teachers and peers. Those who influence us have significant effect on our lifestyle.
In Galatians 4:12, Paul is asking the Galatian Christians to become like him, and to put themselves in his shoes. He explains that he became like them, and that he knows what they are going through because he has been there too. He asks why they would now throw away the blessing they once felt, and why they would not pay the same deference to him that they once did.
In other words, Paul is asking the Galatian Christians to fully accept their status as free men and women in as he, Paul, has fully abandoned his own status as a man “under the law” to live free in Christ himself.
Those who influence us can control us and control our behavior, so we need to be cautious as to who gets to us. Do we listen to the wrong people or wrong movements in this liberal anti-Christ world?
How do people influence us? We soak up attitudes, ideas and characteristics like a sponge from the people around us without realizing it. We absorb, assimilate and instinctively mirror behaviors. We adopt mindsets that we understand to be beneficial.
People influence others through political savvy, self-promotion, building trust and networking. The goal is to influence and change others. Sensory data is interpreted according to our cultural learnings long before our ability to think about and understand our culture develops.
As Christians, we need to be sure, both in and out of the church, by whom or what we are influenced. Like Paul, Jesus calls us to be influenced by and emulate Him.
Think about it. By whom are you influenced. Who is your number one influencer?
Sometimes True Stories
Counterculture: a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, often in opposition to mainstream cultural mores.
In a society and culture moving further and further from the values in which it was founded, how then should we live?
A Countercultural Standard For Living:
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
Do not conform to what the world/age says is ok.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so you can discern God’s perfect will.
Do not think of yourself more highly than you should
Think sensibly
Be a functional part of the body of Christ
How, then, will you live? For Christianity is naturally countercultural. What, then, will you follow? Mainstream society and the direction it’s world is pulling and leading? Or the counter… a world led by Biblical values, with decisions and choices made through prayer and supplication? Marty Stubblefield
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Words from Edgar Aponte:
The Bible is clear in that only God is worthy of worship.
Our true value can only be rightly understood in light of the coming of the Lord.
A right view of God’s majesty leads us to worship Him.
A right view of God’s mindfulness toward us frees us from seeking our value in the world. Remember that He came for you!
Quotes You Can Use
How does a three month old child know what is funny? Maybe it is in our human DNA.
The world may war against Jesus but He will triumph— He is the Lord of lords and King of kings. Dan Shock
The coming of the Lord enables us to be real about the messiness of the world while still being hopeful for the future.
Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised. Andrew Carnegie
Truth is the first casualty of power. Michael Smith
There are two genders. One goes to a gynecologist, while the other goes to a urologist. Every other needs to go to a psychiatrist.
Your life as a Christian should make nonbelievers question their disbelief in God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Common sense is not a gift, it is a punishment because you have to deal with everyone who doesn’t have it.
The only sin Jesus ever had was ours, and the only righteousness we can ever have is His. A.W. Tozer
No society wants you to become wise, as it is against the investment of all societies. If people are wise, they cannot be exploited.
Older people shouldn’t eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.
The leading cause for injury for old men is them thinking they are still young men.
Never confuse education with intelligence. You can have a PhD and still be an idiot.
When I have to fill out a form naming whom to call in the case of an emergency, I always write “ambulance”, because no one in my family is going to answer a call from and unknown number.
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