Transformed by Our Surroundings

We are easily influenced by our environments.

For example, a wife noticed that her husband enjoyed snacking at midnight. Soon, she found herself telling him often that he shouldn’t do so because it was unhealthy.

After a year, though her husband continued to snack, she stopped nagging him.

After two years, she started joining in his midnight snacking.

The truth is that as you spend more time with someone, you gradually become influenced by them. Your values, your habits, your outlook.

For us who live in the end times, we must be cognisant of this for we have been warned by Jesus and His apostles that in the last days, the world we live in will become increasingly evil (Matt 24:10-12, 2 Tim 3:1-4).

Every day, the world is trying to draw our attention away from God, doing its best to appeal to our fleshly desires. It prepares many challenges for us to worry about, and also many pleasurable things for us to take comfort in, creating a vicious cycle that ensnares us, exacerbating our sinful nature.

If we are not vigilant, we may start to compromise and give in to our fleshly desires more and more. And before we know it, yielding to our fleshly desires becomes second nature to us. Doing what is right becomes immensely difficult, whereas sinning becomes a force of habit (Rom 7:19).

This is not just a matter of a lack of discipline.

Those transformed by the world’s values are those who have become slaves of sin (Rom 7:23), living according to the flesh’s sinful desires which leads to death (Rom 8:13).

Transformed by God

At face value, a simple solution would be to stay away from all who are evil and unholy– to live hermit lives, void of all contact with human societies.

But this too is not what the Lord wills for us. If we live isolated and insulated from the world, how shall we carry out the Lord’s will to save the souls of man through His gospel (Mark 16:16, Rom 10:14)? 

So how do we avoid being influenced by the world? How do we ensure that we don’t live according to the flesh?

As Paul proclaims, the one who can deliver us from our sinful desires is Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 8:13)!

Jesus knew that the pressures we face from the world would be great. So by His grace, He has sent us His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts as our helper (John 14:26).

His Spirit is great and powerful. 

It is through Him that we can “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom 8:13). And it is He who “helps us in our weaknesses” by interceding for us according to the will of God (Rom 8:26-27). 

Conclusion

Today, the environments we face may abound with sinful habits, values and lifestyles. Worse still, at times we may not be able to escape from such an environment.

Let us not grow weary and give in to the evil influence of the world. Instead, let us rely on His Holy Spirit to renew us that we may be saved (Tit 3:5). 

We can do so by learning from Jesus. Just as He prayed with tears and vehement cries that He may obey God’s will in the garden of Gethsemane (Heb 5:7-8), we too should earnestly pray for His Holy Spirit to free us from sin and help us learn obedience.