The Influence!

Psalm 1
¹ Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

² But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

⁴ Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

⁶ For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

My Mother had a great deal of one liners as we grew up. Such as, "If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?" or "If I were not a Christian and saw how you are acting, why would I want to become one?" Basically, she was guiding us away from the influence of the world.

If you want to be successful, you've got to stay away from the bad company present in the world. First of all, you cannot listen to their counsel. You've got to turn a deaf ear to the counsel of this world. The world is the devil's psychiatrist and you don't need to be lying on her couch.

I had a man come to me one time who was having severe marital difficulties, who was trying to get his marriage back together and as we talked I asked him how I could pray for him and his wife. Do you know what he said? He said, "Would you please pray that she would reject ungodly counsel?" He then told me how she was getting counseled from a woman who had been divorced several times and she was advising her to also get a divorce. You would be better off getting advice on brain surgery from an automobile mechanic than you would to listen to the world's advice.

Think about it. Why would you listen to a world full of sin and let the world advise you on how to deal with sin? It is like a man who had a sick mule and he went to his next door neighbor and said, "Sam, my mule is sick. When your mule got sick what did you do for it?" He said, "I gave him a quart of kerosene."

The man went home and gave his mule a quart of kerosene and the mule died. He came back and said, "Sam, didn't you tell me to give my mule a quart of kerosene?" He said, "Yes I did." He said, "I did that and my mule died." The man said, "Don't feel bad, mine did too!"

There are people who are dead today, in prison today, people who are on the junk heap of life today, people who are eaten up with sexual disease today, because they listened to the wrong crowd.

Psalm 1 tells us to take the wisdom and counsel of God. He is our perfect healer and adviser on life. There are too many times we just don't listen. I am thankful for a great Mom who guided us with a biblical influence. I am also grateful she gave us passion and desire to seek the counsel of God.

You know I love ya, Don