Influence

 The term ' influencer' has suddenly emerged in common parlance over the past couple of years - referring to people who use their status on social media to advertise products and services to the watching/instagramming public.  Influencers have millions of followers watching their every move, and presumably buying the products they endorse.  It's all a bit of a mystery to me to be honest.

On Wednesday Christiano Ronaldo, probably the most famous footballer on the planet and a role model to thousands of young sports fans across the world, wiped £2.8 billion off the share price of Coca Cola when he removed a bottle of coke from a table at which he was being interviewed and replaced it with a bottle of water.

Just think about that for a second.   

A bloke sits at a table, moves a bottle, and within five minutes the company that made that bottle loses a chunk of its value. Not only that, but the removal of the bottle makes headlines around the world.  Talk about influence!!  Talk about responsibility.

If you were Ronaldo and you knew that your words and actions could have that sort of effect on the world what would you be  endorsing/damning/ praising/changing?   Ronaldo, along with may other global sporting superstars, uses his fame for doing much good.  He educates children in Gaza and during Covid donated about a million dollars to hospitals in Portugal ( his home country) for PPE and ventilators.  He usually donates prize money running into hundreds of thousands of pounds to charity and has refused to get tattoos so that he can be a regular blood donor.  He seems to be a young man who is well aware of his influence and determined to use it for good wherever he can.

The Coca Cola story this week got me thinking about Jesus...... the most influential man who ever walked the earth.  His influence stretches across centuries and has transformed civilizations.  His call to His followers is that we, His church, should become as influential as He is.  We have His Spirit within us and His kingdom to declare - the good news that the way things are are not they way they shall always be.  The church should be a body which, when it moves a bottle, sees global systems crumble.  I think there have been times in the past when the church had the ability to greatly influence the world, but it used its influence unwisely and perhaps to serve its own ends.  Before the end of the age will we see a church rise up which has the ability to once again end tyranny, champion the poor, be at the cutting edge of innovation, invention and creativity and be the ultimate influence for good in the world?   I do believe we will.

Who are you influencing at the moment and how can you extend your sphere or increase your depth of influence for Jesus today?