Who do you influence? And, perhaps just as importantly, who influences you?

In today’s world, where terrorism seems to run rampant, where your personal information is being shared by social media outlets in attempts to shape America’s political system, where no one is quite sure what constitutes “fake news,”and where the least reliable information seems to be that which we take to heart the fastest, it seems everyone and every thing is trying to influence how we think, feel and act.

It is our job to choose the influences in our lives and to determine how much any one thing will sway our thoughts.

We often accuse young people of being the ones to follow the crowd, but peer pressure these days doesn’t just apply to those in middle and high school. Quite the contrary, it is adults who seem to be buckling to society’s norms the fastest, a trend that has been escalating for quite some time now in the social, political and financial arenas.

Take social media as the example. Look at how quickly we share information that we don’t know to be true, yet pass off as if it is. Ironically many of the same people who like and then pass along unverified tidbits cry the loudest when something — or somebody — they disagree with is shared, labeling it the infamous “fake news.”

The excuse: We do it because everyone else does. By definition that’s peer pressure or influence.

Look back a couple decades at what we’ve allowed to happen for further examples. In the 1960s, ’70s, even ’80s, Wednesday nights, in most small communities, at least, was considered “church night,” a time when choirs practiced, Bible study was held and children’s programs were taught. It was a family night, where people of faith, gathered, fellowshipped and studied, and where others in the community were encouraged to come along for the very same reasons.

Fast-forward to today, where Wednesday night is as disjointed as the next night. Families are scattered, with husbands carting one child to soccer practice, wives taking another to dance, and still others working late. And those churches which still offer Wednesday night services are welcoming fewer of the faithful, and even fewer of those searching for love, hope and a sense of belonging in a world far less welcoming than it once was.

And we chalk up the change to society’s influence, saying we can’t force our family to continue going to Wednesday night events at church when everyone else’s families are getting involved in other extracurricular activities.

Then take a look at our political views. Are they truly ours or are they influenced by someone else? Do we think for ourselves or do we allow society to think for us? Do we criticize an opposing political party’s candidates for moral actions we quickly ignore in those of our own party?

Again there’s the influence.

Being influenced isn’t a new thing. In fact, the Apostle Paul talked about such influence in his letter to the Corinthian church in the first century AD, cautioning against people holding too high an esteem of their knowledge and using that to lead others.

Paul believed true influence should be left to God and, thus, to those who love the Lord and work daily to follow his will in their lives.

Not our will but His will; not our wants and desires but His will, which starts in the greatest commandments, to love thy neighbor as thyself, and to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind. It is our belief that if those two commands were the influences in our lives, then the society we live in today (one we often fear and loathe) would be forever changed, and for the better.

As we draw closer to the Christian celebration of Easter, we should examine the influences in our lives and weed out things that make us stray from the love it will take to make this world a place where we can all live in harmony.