Don’t Be Fooled

by **Ponee** Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:16 am

Don’t Be Fooled

By R. Anthony Ministries

…Do not be fooled. "Bad companions ruin good character." (1 Cor 15:33) TEV

“Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”    George Washington

Just how powerful is the influence of others around us? I must say, through some very “bad experiences” that the influence of those we hang out with is so deadly to us that it reaches into our sub-conscious and clings to us almost unaware. However, there is a conscious awareness of influences around us also. We must watch the company we keep, those we become intimate with. The three areas that “bad influence” finds entrance into our lives are as follows:

I. BY A CORRUPT HEART - "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Prov 23:7)    We are told to guard our heart. The word of God also says: “The heart is deceitful above all things,"(Jer 17:9) We must caution existence with a corrupt heart, it will lead us astray.

II. BY A POLLUTED IMAGINATION – The word of God instructs us to keep pure imagination. The things we think on need to be God inspired.
“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (2 Cor 10:5)KJV
Here is something I read. “The reason why imagination sometimes wanders to forbidden paths is because she is the slave of the heart. The influence of the moon upon the tide is not more regular and absolute than that of the heart over the imagination.”

III. BY THE HABITS AND BEHAVIOUR OF CURRENT SOCIETY (both Believer and Non-Believer) Here is one of the greatest avenues of Satan to trap us. It is so unfortunate that the church has developed an idea (through imagination) that conforming to this world is all-of-a-sudden somehow acceptable with God. I think not… God wants us to be transformed into His glorious image to express it to this desperate society. We are see the world and desire to be like it. To have what it offers. O partake of it’s dainties. We have fallen away. We are called to “reprove the world”. We are commanded to “love not this world, neither the things that are in the world.” (1 John 2:15) KJV    We have to carry on the struggle against the evil that is in mankind, not by judging others, but by judging ourselves.

More often than we think, the unspoken, sometimes unconscious, reason that persons seek out conversation with the pastor is a desire to keep company with God. They want positive influence. They need positive influence. The best way to become a positive influence to the world is to watch the “company we keep.”

“Your influence is negative or positive, never neutral.”    Henrietta Cornelia Mears (1890-1963)

Self-deception: -- Of all species of deception, self-deception is the most detrimental; it is like having a traitor in the fortress who betrays his country to an enemy. Be not deceived --
http://richa.simdif.com/daily_reading.html