How will you use your influence?

God’s characteristics or “attributes” tell us what God is like. And theologians divide his attributes into two categories: communicable and incommunicable. Communicable attributes may be communicated, or shared, with us. Think of God’s love or holiness. We, too, can be loving and holy.

His incommunicable attributes, however, are those qualities that only he possesses. Think of his omnipresence (he is everywhere) or omniscience (he knows everything).One of God’s incommunicable attributes is that he is immutable. He doesn’t change. We change. He does not.

We Are Changeable Creatures

Perhaps you are thinking, “You don’t know what a creature of habit my husband is!” It’s true. I don’t. Yet I promise you that, however deep the ruts of habit are in your husband’s life, we humans are always changing.We are born, we grow, we age, we die. All this is change.

We learn things we didn’t know, and we forget things we did know. We become more godly, or less. All this, too, is change.And of course circumstances affect us—sometimes for good, other times for ill. God doesn’t change; we do. We are by nature changeable and changing creatures.Added to that, we live in a world marked by serious spiritual conflict.

Peter knew the world pressed in on his readers: “They are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you” (). Paul observed that the ruler of the kingdom of the air “is now at work” in the disobedient (). That’s why he exhorts us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds ().The underlying reality here is, humans can be changed— positively and negatively.

We Influence and Are Influenced

Another way to say this is, we human beings are open to being influenced. Remember what Jesus said: when a disciple is fully trained, he will be like his teacher ().

In fact, I want to take this one step further: all of us inevitably will be influenced by others, and we will in turn influence others. “Bad company ruins good morals,” says Paul (), and “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (5:6). The people around you will influence you, for better or worse. And for better or worse you in turn will affect the people around you. An absentee father influences his children even in his absence. None of us is an island.

How Will You Use Your Influence?

The only question that remains for you is, how will you use your influence? Maybe you didn’t think of yourself as having influence, but you do! You are created in God’s own image, and God is so weighty that even the impress of his image bears weight.

Your life impacts the people around you, even if you’re at the bottom of the totem pole, or you don’t feel respected by the people around you.Consider how Peter instructs the servants of unjust masters or the wives of unbelieving husbands (; ). He knows that both possess influence by their faithfulness.

Wives of non-Christian husbands, Peter says, can win those husbands “without a word by the conduct” of their lives. And the example for each is Jesus Christ. Through his suffering, he brought healing and life (2:21–25).In other words, you will have influence through the gifts that God has given you in creation. But more than that, you can have gospel influence, and amazingly, making a gospel impact in people’s lives doesn’t come only through your strengths, but also through your weakness.

God does this so that his power would be displayed through our weakness and he would receive all the glory (see ).So, again, you have influence. How will you use yours? When you step out of the hallway of this life into the room of eternity, what will you have left behind in the lives of others? According to the Bible, a disciple of Christ disciples others by helping them to follow Christ. Is that how you are exercising your influence?