The term influencer has become quite the buzzword in recent years as more and more individuals upload content on various social media platforms. I am not one to spend a lot of time watching videos on social media. I will go to YouTube sometimes to learn how to do something, but not very often. I have found that you could almost perform brain surgery with a sedative, sharp knife, and the right YouTube video! (Just kidding, please, do not try do brain surgery at home.)
I hear my grandchildren talk about people and I ask if that particular person is their friend, their answer is usually, “No. I watch them on YouTube. They are an influencer.” This always makes me acutely aware of how much strangers can influence the life of people they have never met and probably never will.
I know for several years now, there have been “challenges” on different platforms of social media. Most are designed just to see if a video can go viral (Which I always though viral had to do with viruses, so it seems like that should be a bad thing). Some of these challenges have resulted in injury and even death for many who have tried to complete these challenges. Why is it worth it? What is the draw? Is it because people want thousands of strangers to approve of them?
All of this leads to me to my point. As Christians, we are to be influencers. Paul said in Romans 12:2–2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. We need to be proving God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will in our lives every single day. That means we think with the mind of God. We treat others with grace and compassion. We display unconditional love for others. We treat others in the same way we want to be treated. This is how we become influencers. Will everybody love us back? No, but that is not why we do what we do. We love others because God first loved us and that is reason enough.
There are so many ways we can influence the world around us. God has blessed each of us with talents and we can use those to the best of our ability. In Romans 12:6-8, Paul lists some gifts and the idea is whatever gift or gifts you possess, give it your best.
Our influencing of others may never go viral, however, when you influence one person, they will influence another and it won’t be long before your original influence is felt by many people the world around! We don’t have to have a huge audience to be an influencer. We just need to be the loving caring person God calls us to be and to imitate Jesus as walk through this life.
Read Matthew 5:13-16