Living Under the Influence of Jesus
“More often than we e’er suspect, the lives of others we do affect.”
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
The phrase “under the influence” carries negative connotations for many readers. It certainly does for me. One of my close relatives is sitting in a jail cell today because he made a tragic mistake while driving a car “under the influence.” Yet, those three words also carry a positive meaning that is far more powerful.
We all are who we are, what we are, and where we are because we were “under the influence” of certain people. I have mentioned many in this book who have influenced me either through the books they wrote or the relationships we had or the advice they gave. I never prepare a sermon that I don’t ask, “How would _______ approach this passage?” My parenting approach was greatly influenced through the writings of James Dobson and the loving guidance I was given by my parents. My problem-solving methods to this day go all the way back to my accounting professor, Joe Master, who ingrained in his students the determination to solve even the most difficult accounting problems with rigorous reasoning and indefatigable effort. On and on it goes.
The hard truth is we are all influencers and we are all influenced. Sociologists tell us that even the shiest introvert will influence 10,000 people over a lifetime. Influence is impossible to escape in either an active or a passive sense. It is like the weather—always there to be reckoned with. Influence is built into the structure of life itself.
Think about our legal system. The very nature of the legal process guarantees that decisions made in one case affect not only the parties directly involved in the case itself, but the rights of others in future cases. This is because of a principle known as stare decisis, the concept of precedent. Whenever a decision is rendered in a court case, unless that decision is reversed or modified, other courts follow suit in similar situations. Today every public school in America is desegregated because of one decision—Brown vs. the Board of Education—handed down over a half-century ago.
Like a ghost, influence hovers over us wherever we go. We can feel it, but we have to figure out how to remove obstacles between it and us. We have to learn to tap into it. That is why as parents you remain interested and concerned about the people your kids hang out with even after they leave home. We instinctively know that the influence of relationships never diminishes. You want your kids to be a positive influence on others, so you need to protect them from the negative influences that might prevent that.
Someone has called influence the “epicenter of leadership.” Truer words have never been spoken. I would add that character is the epicenter of positive influence. Again, everyone has some influence over somebody. It’s what you do with it that determines whether it’s positive or negative.
Recently I saw The Blind Side, one of the finest movies I have seen in years. This touching film tells the story of Michael Oher, a homeless African-American boy from a broken home who is taken in and adopted by Sean and Leigh Anne Touhy, a wealthy white couple who lovingly nurture him into eventually becoming a dean’s list student in college and a star football player. This true story illustrates the incredible influence a power-of-one person can have on another.
This doesn’t mean that the result of one’s influence as a leader will always be positive. The past two years have been some of the most painful of my career because I have had to let some people go from our organization for a number of reasons, ranging from economic to performance to just not being a good fit for the job they were trying to do. Yet, if I hadn’t made some of these tough decisions, my influence would have greatly suffered when others in the organization knew changes needed to be made.
At the same time, the greatest influence and impact you have on others comes from who and what you are. I don’t really care what title you have on the outside. Your character will determine if the title fits you. Wear your character well and use the power that comes with it in a way that positively maximizes the impact you have on others.
I have given you nine key character qualities that I am convinced if exercised and seen by others consistently will lift the influence you have on others to its highest possible level. People around the world will line up to follow someone who consistently displays love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in their interactions with others and in their responses to even the most difficult of situations.
Yes, I know your question: How can anyone display all these qualities consistently? Humanly speaking, you can’t. That’s the bad news. The good news is, it is not only a possibility but a distinct reality—if you are under the influence.
Help Is on the Way
A five-year-old boy fell out of bed, waking the entire household with his cry. After his mother had safely tucked him back under the covers, she asked, “Why did you fall out of bed?”
Between tears and sobs, he said, “Well, I guess I went to sleep too close to where I got in.”
Too many people do just that in life—sleepwalk too close to where they began. They fall far short of what God created them to become. The vast majority of people never learn the secret of how to positively and eternally influence and impact people. I didn’t randomly pick out the nine qualities we’ve discussed. These virtues are fruit—the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
These virtues are not naturally manufactured—they are supernaturally produced. Those who have God’s Holy Spirit living in them have the supernatural ability to be winners who can influence anybody. All it takes is being under the Spirit’s influence.
The Fruit Comes from the Root
Jesus revealed the secret to getting under the influence in a talk He once gave to His disciples. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:1,5). Keep in mind that, horticulturally, the fruit depends on the influence of the vine. To put it another way, a branch bears fruit only if under the influence of the tree.
Jesus said, “I am the true vine.” Out of a vine spring forth fragile green buds. Then comes the flower—the bloom ready to mature. And then comes the fruit.
The Creator’s will plants the seeds of His image in all of us in order that we might become fruit-bearing branches, reflecting the character of the true vine, His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus says, “My Father is the gardener.” The only thing that interests the gardener is fruit. He doesn’t concern himself about the leaves or the bud, just as God is not impressed with the appearance of the foliage or the flower. He is strictly a fruit inspector. The gardener has one job: to maximize the fruit of the branch.
To ensure that every branch reaches maximum production, God prunes it. Jesus says, “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it may be even more fruitful” (John 15:2). A gardener prunes in two ways: First, he cuts away fruitless branches that might suck sap that ought to be going to the fruitful branches. If the sap is wasted, the vine bears less fruit. Then he cuts away shoots from the fruitful branches so that all the sap concentrates on enabling that branch to bear fruit.
God’s favorite pruning knife is His Word, which Hebrews 4:12 tells us is “sharper than any double-edged sword.” God uses this knife to cut and clean the branch. As you read God’s Word, God cuts away the bad so it doesn’t get in the way of the good, then God cuts out the good so it doesn’t get in the way of the best.
This explains (at least in part) why God allows difficult times to invade our lives. Trials, troubles, and tribulations may simply be pruning shears in the hands of the divine Gardener—tools He uses to cut away dead wood, fruitless branches, and sap-sucking shoots so that we might bear more fruit.
I have had the privilege of spending personal time on two different occasions with the great evangelist Billy Graham. He has embodied the principles found in this book and has perhaps leveraged his life to have more positive influence and impact on others than any person in the twentieth century.
I was awed and humbled to lay hands on this mighty servant of the Lord to pray for him just before he went to preach the gospel to 38,000 people. I knew I was in the presence of a man who literally radiated the qualities outlined in this book. I think of him now because of something he once said: “Mountaintops are for views and inspiration, but fruit is grown in the valleys.”
How true. It’s easy to love those who love us, but Jesus said to love our enemies. It’s easy to be happy when the sun is shining, but difficult when the hail is falling, the thunder is rumbling, and the lightning is crashing. Jesus said, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).
It’s one thing to be at peace and calm when life feels peaceful and calm around us; it’s another to be at peace when life is caving in on us. But Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
Under His Influence
How does the branch bear fruit? By trying? No. By working? No. By straining? No. The branch bears fruit simply by abiding. Jesus said, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5 ESV). What does this mean? How does one abide in Jesus? Let me suggest an analogy.
When we put a tea bag in a cup of hot water, something amazing happens to the water. As the tea bag remains or abides in that water, the tea begins to color and flavor the water until that water begins to take on the color and the taste of the tea bag. The longer the bag abides in the water, the stronger the color and taste of the tea.
That is similar to what happens when we abide in Christ and He abides in us. The longer we abide in Christ and the deeper we go with Christ, the more His influence will pervade our lives so that we begin to reflect His nature and His character.
The branch does not produce the fruit; it only bears the fruit. The vine produces the fruit. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4 ESV).
Without the vine, the strongest branch is as helpless as the weakest branch. The most beautiful branch is as useless as the ugliest branch. The best branch is as worthless as the worst branch.
That’s why Jesus went on to say, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (v. 5 ESV). The vine produces the sap that enables the branch to produce the fruit. We cannot manufacture these nine winning character traits outside of ourselves—the Spirit of God must supernaturally produce them inside of us. He does that when we abide in Christ and stay under His influence.
But what, exactly, does it mean to abide in Christ? Jesus does not leave us wondering. Jesus tells us that abiding means, first of all, studying the Word of God. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7 ESV). When the children of God look into the Word of God and see the Son of God, they are changed by the Spirit of God into the image of God by the grace of God for the glory of God. That is what abiding is all about.
Abiding also means doing the work of God. Jesus said, “Who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (v. 5 ESV). God is in the fruit-bearing business. That is His work; that is what He desires for us. As we stay under His influence, we will find that our work really becomes sharing His influence with others.
Third, abiding is obeying the will of God. Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:10 ESV). When the branch rests in fellowship with the vine, it reproduces the fruit of the vine.
Getting Under the Influence
A branch without a vine is lifeless. Because it is lifeless, it is fruitless. If a branch is fruitless, it is useless. God wants you connected to Him so that He can give you the supernatural power you need to be the winner He created you to be, that you might influence others to be winners as well.
You make this connection through a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ, who died on a cross and was raised from the dead so that, through faith in Him, we might be grafted as branches onto the heavenly vine and begin to bear the heavenly fruit of His Holy Spirit. That—the right connection—is the secret to being a winner who can influence anybody.
Are you under His influence? Are you connected with God through the only One who can make that connection—His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you have in you the indwelling Holy Spirit, who wants to bear the divine fruit of these winning qualities in your life?
If so, ask the Holy Spirit to make you into a tree that will bear fruit of blessing on all you meet. If not, I invite you to surrender your life to Jesus Christ, the true vine, who alone can make you a winner whose influence will last for all eternity.
We all remember the little couplet by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth I knew not where.
But most of us don’t know how the entire poem goes.
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Longfellow illustrates that even an arrow randomly shot or a song randomly sung will ultimately influence someone or something. Our lives shoot arrows and sing songs daily that influence others, often in ways we may not know or even see. But influencing begins with inviting. We must invite the power of God to fill us and help us manifest the fruit that will transform us into vanguards of influence and impact.
My prayer is that you will be under God’s influence so that you might tap into His powerful influence. You can make an eternal impact on others. That’s what we were all created for. I am grateful for all those people who have so powerfully and eternally impacted me. Forever and always, I will never forget them.