Reminds me of life.
We should be kind and friendly to everyone. We should fill up on God, His love and truth, so much that we spread Him to everyone we come in contact with. We should be an influence everywhere we can, but we need to be very careful about who influences us.
It’s easy to think we can allow wrong influences into our lives without it affecting us. But it won’t work.
We can convince ourselves that our closest friends don’t have to be following Jesus and that we can somehow pull them up to our spiritual level. But the huge majority of the time, they end up pulling us down.
Exodus 34:12 warns the Israelites, “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:” They eventually saw just how much of a snare and trap wrong influences can be.
In the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
Who are you allowing to influence you?
Who are you being a Godly influence to?