Influences

JEREMIAH 38 v 14-28

The people who influence my life speak into it but how do I best change the amount they influence me when the season of them influencing me has come to an end?
I allow a select few to have a big influence on life and others to have a smaller influence. My parents, my Pastor and two of my key leaders regularly speak into my life; even with these five they have different amounts of influence. My friends have a different amount of influence - my Christian friends have more than my non-Christian friends. This pattern in that I have in my life sounds good but how much do I control the amount they speak into my life, God is probably not going control how much they speak into my life, but he may help me see that a time of a person having major influence in my has come to the end of a season. I control who speaks into my life and how much they speak into my life but this passage has helped me to recognise when the season has come to an end of that person influencing my life in a big way, it doesn't mean I have to shut them out of my life.

Zedekiah just wanted a bit of Jeremiah's influence on his life, even though God was speaking through Jeremiah. Zedekiah kept the counsel of 'yes men' who just agreed with everything and caused so many things to go wrong. The officials around Jeremiah wanted accurate information but not God's truth. They wanted to use the information against God, his Prophet and the King. Jeremiah didn't withhold God's truth from people but he did withhold information that the devil would use to destroy and ruin people with.

Zedekiah doesn't control how much he allows people to speak into his life and he keeps chopping and changing who he is listening too. How can he make decisions that will please God if he can't decide who to listen to. 1 Corinthians 12 v 1-3, " ¹ Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. ² You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. ³ 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."
This passage shows how the Corinthian’s were also influenced by the wrong things and people. It can be fatal who we allow to influence us.

One things I know is that above all the great people I allow to influence my life, the plans and purposes of God on life sit above them all. They are part of the plan, I look at the people who influence me and they wouldn't be influencing me if I hadn't followed God's plan and purpose for my life.
I am in the process of being moulded into the man God wants me to be!