PUTTING YOUR INFLUENCE TO WORK

Five Instruments of Influence II

Pastor Tayo Adeyemi

Senior Pastor, New Wine Church

                                                                  Sunday 5 December 2010

Foundation Scriptures: Matthew 5 : 13-16; Ephesians 3: 20  

This is the final part of the journey that we’ve been on over the last four weeks in which we have looked at putting our influence to work. You will recall that last week we established that God has already equipped us with everything that we need to fulfil our destiny and that it is our responsibility to discover, develop and deploy those tools. We also looked last week at the first of the five instruments of influence that have been placed at our disposal, namely Information, which we defined as knowledge acquired through experience or study and the capital commodity of the 21^st century, the main source of wealth on earth today. We also agreed that to be well-informed is to be well equipped and relevant and that if we wished to wield great influence, we must become information brokers, adept at acquiring and sharing information and locating and communicating information.

The book of Philemon 4:-6 states that the sharing of our faith becomes more effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in us in Christ Jesus. God has loaded you with a wealth of resources and when you begin to understand the treasure that you carry, you will begin to increase your influence. On this basis, let’s consider the remaining four instruments of influence:

“There is a way to do it better – find it” Thomas Edison

Innovation, simply means to make new. This does not necessarily mean creating something that did not exist before but involves finding new ways of looking at old things. It is the art of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know; learning to take a fresh look at the things that we take for granted. If you want to increase your influence, especially with those around you, you must be able to contribute what you have not contributed before. Your ideas do not need to be original but they must be fresh: If one restaurant serves fresh bread even though they don’t bake it themselves and another always serves stale bread, it is clear where people will go. So let me ask you “What are you serving?” 

Whereas information is the acquisition of knowledge, innovation is the application of knowledge in a new and fresh way. Information is Pharaoh having a dream; innovation is Joseph interpreting that dream and offering effective strategies for the future.

Let me give you four qualities you need in order to be innovative: (i) Curiosity – you must know how to ask questions; never take things for granted. (ii) Openness - learn never to say ‘never’. Soren Kierkegard said “A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.” The best way to capture a good idea is to be open to lots of ideas. We often look at Hebrews 13:2, which encourages us learn to entertain strangers, in a narrow sense, however I put it to you that the strangers referred to in this verse can be ideas as much as they can represent people and whilst I am not suggesting that you should indiscriminately embrace every idea that comes your way, the point remains that in order to be innovative, you must be open. (iii) Risk – if you are unwilling to risk failure, you are not likely to make new discoveries. You will not discover new territories until you are willing to lose sight of the shore. (iv) Imagination – give your mind permission to run free once in a while. Albert Einstein said “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attraction.”

“If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself” Dwight L Moody

Integrity is defined as soundness of moral character and adherence to moral principles; in other words, integrity is honesty. In your circle of friends, you may not be the richest or most knowledgeable, but you should seek to be the most honourable.

You may wonder how integrity relates to influence; it does so in two primary ways. Firstly, integrity adds value to your name. Your name is equity and there will come a time that you will need to cash it in. In fact, every time you exercise influence you are in effect cashing the equity of your name. By your actions and your lifestyle, you are either increasing the value of your name or diminishing it; if you think of your name as a bank account, then by your actions you are either making withdrawals or making deposits. The second way that integrity relates to influence is that integrity adds value to to your words. You should let your words be of such value that people can stake their lives on what you say.

In John 6:63, we see from Jesus that words are spirit and life. Your words are an extension of your person and they will carry the same weight with people as you do. If people consider you to be a lightweight, your words will be considered in the same way - your words will be easy to forget, easy to dismiss and will fall to the ground all the time. But if people consider you to be a heavy-weight, your words will be received in like manner; you will be hard to dismiss, hard to ignore and hard to oppose.

Here are a few quotations about integrity that I have come across: Byrd Buggett said “Integrity is doing what you said you would do, when you said you would do it and how you said you would do it.” James Dignum said “Watch the direction the feet point when the mouth stops. You want a consistency between mouth and movement.” My favourite quotation is by Samuel Johnson because he connected integrity and information and observed that “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless. And knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

“That He may establish His covenant“

Increase, and by this I mean wealth, is the fourth instrument of influence. Deuteronomy 8:18 makes clear that God gives you the power to create wealth for a reason – so that His covenant can be established. This is where wealth and influence are connected. Now, wealth is not the same as money; money is a form of wealth but there is more to wealth than money. As far as it relates to influence, there are five things to you need to know about money and these are as follows: (i)What you think about money is more important than what you do about money. In reality, what you think about money will determine what you do about money and indeed, what you do with money. So from the outset, you need to sort out your thinking about money. What is money to you? How do you see it? How do you feel about money? Are you afraid of it? Money is not so much a thing as it is a concept; it is more mental than physical. As long as you continue to see money as a thing, it will continue to elude you. When you engage with things you ‘do’, whereas when you engage with ideas, you ‘think’.

Money follows ideas; ideas do not follow money. If you have a lot of money in your pocket and I have a lot of ideas in my head, it is more likely that the ideas in my head will pull the money out of your pocket. For this reason, never pursue money; rather, pursue wisdom. (ii) How you get money and how you use money will determine your influence (iii) With regard to money, who you are is more important than what you do. Are you a giver or a taker? A reservoir or a conduit? (iv) Money itself is a neutral instrument of influence, but what you do with it cannot be neutral (v) Your influence is not determined by how much money you have; but by how you use the money you have. More money doesn’t necessarily mean more influence – there are lots of people who have lots of money and no influence at all. The more money that you spend on yourself, the less influence that you will have; the more you give away, the greater your influence will be.

“Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.”E M Bounds

Intercession, or prayer is the last of instruments of influence that I want to look at and is one of the most powerful forces for influence in the world. Your prayers transcend time and space- they go where you cannot go, can touch the people that you cannot touch and can open the doors that you cannot open. Matthew 6: 10 “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” in my view, is the ultimate influence prayer. Demons take flight and heaven responds when you pray. Your prayers are a force for influence, particularly when you pray for others. When people are bound by the devil, the power of prayer can free them; when people are headed for destruction, the power of prayer can turn them around; when people are lost, the power of prayer can turn their hearts towards home. Never underestimate the power of your prayer.  In whatever situation you find yourself, remember that you can achieve very little until you have prayed. However, the beautiful thing is that there is nothing too small to pray about and there is nothing too big to pray about.

Information – Innovation – Integrity – Increase - Intercession

So, here we have it; Information, Innovation, Integrity, Increase and Intercession; five instruments of influence that God has placed in our hands. Five smooth stones to use - now go and use them. Your influence is of no benefit until you put it to use. Use your information, your innovation, your integrity increase and intercession. There is a world waiting for you to exercise your influence; Go and be a difference maker.  Your influence is irresistible – Go and ignite it!