Who's influencing You?

As I was teaching yesterday I asked the classes to  pick who influenced them: family or friends and write their names down.  Then I asked them to write down the good
and the bad characteristics of everyone they wrote down.

I asked them them why they thought that mattered in a career and leadership.

As most high schoolers do...they just looked at me like I had 2 heads.

I then proceeded to tell them that the people they are around will influence who they
become if they don't know who they are in the first place.

We then talked about the fact that many people think that if they can just leave this
place or that place; if they could get a better job, if their kids would just behave....

Well it all starts with YOU.

I tell people during teaching if they want to move somewhere or do something different they first need to make sure they are not running away from something but yet to something. They also need to be clear with why they are running to something, but as we delve into it we find that they are still running away
but the issue is that the very thing they are running away from is the very thing you
always take with you.....it's YOU.

So back to influencing... Who's influencing you and do you even know who you are and
do you even care?

Example my oldest daughter....I could tell every time she got new friends.... How? She
changed her music.

What is it that you change every time you have a new influence come into your life?

Know what you believe

Ephesians 4:11-14. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of 
Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the 
Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of 
Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and
blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and 
craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

and who you are or.....you might just find yourself caught up in:

2 Timothy 4: 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. 
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of 
teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear

Now back to the YOU  part.... You always take you with you...so you can change the
outward appearance, (new clothes, new hair style), but until you change the heart....

Proverbs 27:19 

As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.