Positioned for Powerful Influence

Adapted from Louie Giglio’s talk, Positioned for Powerful Influence.

Let that sink in. 

Among your co-workers, God has positioned you for powerful influence. 

In your neighborhood, God has positioned you for powerful influence. 

With your in-laws, God has positioned you for powerful influence. 

And in your relationships, God has positioned you for powerful influence.

Louie and Shelley Giglio remind us that God has intentionally placed each of us in other people’s lives so they can watch Him transform our lives—because when God changes a life, people see it.

Put simply, our witness is strongest when the quality of our lives is more powerful than the quantity of our words. Said another way, pretty is as pretty does. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Matthew 6:21-23

What is inside of us will indeed make its way out of us. The light within us shines out of us, and darkness within us reveals itself. That’s why it’s such a great folly that most of us spend all day worrying about our outward appearance rather than the condition of our hearts. It is the condition of our hearts that most effectively displays Jesus to the world around us. 

For the Christian, this is where our perspective has to shift. We have to spend more time considering what our actions and attitudes are putting on display. We have to consider often if we are living according to the commands of 1 Peter 3 or not; if we are treating our spouses the way God has called us to or not; if we are eager to do good and turn from evil or not.

Paul says it this way in his letter to the Philippians:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5-8

We are co-heirs with Christ, a title that comes with celebration and calling. Jesus is making us new; it’s time to act like it.