As I left to go to lunch with a friend of mine, with a man who did not have the greatest reputation in terms of his character, a couple of the folks in the office joked with me about my lunch companion: “Better be careful, Roy. He’s going to be a bad influence on you.” “Hey, Roy! Watch out or he will change you.”

Even though these were just idle, funny comments, just office banter, I still felt obligated to say, “You need to know who is influencing whom. What if I’m the one changing him?”

You see, I was the one who invited him to lunch, and I did so for the explicit and premeditated purpose of influencing him. He is the one who must change. He is the one who must repent and come to faith in Jesus. Now the Lord Jesus Christ has called me to be His change agent in the world. Because I have been forever changed, I make it my goal to be a change agent for Jesus.

“Who is changing whom?” Will I be the one who is changed? Not when my feet have been firmly planted on the solid rock of Jesus Christ (Psalm 40:2). I will not be moved (Psalm 125:1), but I will instead attempt to move the wicked in the direction of repentance. “Who is changing whom?” I have already been changed by Jesus Christ and therefore can never be moved back into the place where evil controls me. “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).” So since I have His power at work within me (Ephesians 3:20), I can boldly try to change others. “Who is changing whom?”

The LORD said to Jeremiah, “If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will be My spokesman. They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them (Jeremiah 15:19).” The LORD is telling His prophet that he is to be a spokesman and an influence, a change agent for the LORD, but that he must not turn to the wicked and take up their wicked ways. And this is exactly what we are called to do. We are called to be change agents for the Lord. “Who is changing whom?”

So who are you influencing? Who are you changing by your godly life and by your telling others about Jesus Christ? Are your feet firmly planted so that the world’s influence does not move you, but instead you stand steadfast and immovable on the Rock? “Who is changing whom?” SDG rmb 12/14/2015