Influence is the platform God gives you to help others succeed.
How can you succeed by helping others succeed? We succeed at our very best only when we help others succeed.
When God's first in your life and your family's second, the perspective is that the platform as player is for the purpose of lifting up His name and glorifying Him in all you do. No matter what the platform is, that's the goal and that's the prayer before tonight's game and before every game.
I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water, and lifting up her hands, she said, as a blessing, What! all this, and Christ too?
It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.
If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but major surgery. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way— not in a human way that ignores God.
When we desire to be a blessing, we find that there are many ways in which we can bless others. We can give material goods to others, and we can also offer them the benefit of our experience. People who have faced and overcome challenges with alcohol and drugs often involve themselves in helping others who are experiencing similar difficulties. They understand the value of overcoming the problem. In every area of the human experience, we may find those precious ones who are able and willing to be a blessing to others.
If you shift your focus from yourself to others, extend your concern to others, and cultivate the thought of caring for the well being of others, then this will have the immediate effect of opening up your life and helping you to reach out.
I do believe God has given me an incredible opportunity and a platform in a secular environment but still to take a stand for Christ and being a blessing to believers.
Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.
I still refer to myself as a 'cheerleader' because I keep encouraging others to have confidence and to use their talents to follow their dreams. It's been one of the most important reasons for my success and my helping others succeed.
The person who has the motivational gift of giving has a tremendous opportunity to be a blessing to others in the body of Christ, to encourage others in the proper use of their finances, and to make the extension of the Gospel possible.
Loving others in a biblical manner involves your thoughts, words, and actions and is a sign of your being a disciple of Christ. Loving others biblically is dependent on your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and is not dependent on people, circumstances, or your feelings.
How did Don Jackson influence the field of family therapy? How did Watts influence the steam engine? He made it. Others have refined the steam engine into a better, more efficient machine. I'd say that is what Don did for family therapy, he established the discipline. Others have gone on to refine it.
No matter what circumstances you sisters experience, your influence can be marvelously far-reaching. I believe some of you have a tendency to underestimate your profound capacity for blessing the lives of others. More often than not, it is not on the stage with some public pronouncement but in your example of righteousness and the countless gentle acts of love and kindness done so willingly, so often on a one-to-one basis.
The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.