We Do Affect Others

From today's Men of Integrity devotional:

Kid after kid was being hauled before a judge in a juvenile court, most from one inner-city neighborhood. Exasperated, he asked one young offender, "Where did you learn to do this stuff?"

The adolescent replied, '"Rocko taught me."

When the next case came up, the judge asked, "Who taught you to steal?"

"Rocko did."

Over the next three days, the judge found 33 juvenile delinquents who'd picked up their criminal skills from Rocko. Realizing that he was the key to cutting the crime rate, the judge instructed the district attorney to find him and bring him in. Two days later, Rocko stood before the bench.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" the judge demanded. "I've got a jail full of minors whose lives you've corrupted. How could you do such a thing?"

"Eddie taught me," the young man replied.

In a perverted but potent way, gangs do what the community of faith ought to have been doing all along—multiplying themselves by using the influence of personal relationships to affect attitudes and behavior.

I still grieve sometimes over the bad influence I spread many years ago when I was living for Satan. I've been forgiven of it, but so many of those people that I affirmed and encouraged to do bad things, I'll never see them again to tell them I was wrong.

When we make bad choices, it encourages others around us to do the same. When we tell others that bad behaviors are good behaviors, or at least act like they're morally neutral, we participate in another person's journey down the dark path.

In 2008, let us all resolve to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds."