People influence one another for good or bad simply by being around each other. Every person we come in contact with is both making and receiving a unique positive or negative impartation. As we connect with people we are bestowing and conferring on others what is operating in our lives in abundance, and they are bestowing and conferring upon us what is operating in their lives in abundance.
Moses, for example, was told to lay his hands on Joshua so that an impartation of wisdom, authority, and honor could be made into his life. Similarly, Elisha received a double portion of the anointing when Elijah graced him with his cloak. Paul indicated that his special grace of divine protection and deliverance was available to his partners in ministry who prayed for him and supported his ministry endeavors. In other words, we catch what people have, not what they simply say or want us to catch. We don’t catch the mumps from someone who has the measles.
We all have something to impart, and we all have something that can be imparted into our lives from others. They key is to be careful who we connect with, associate with, and align with because we all will imbibe or absorb, assimilate, and take in the spirit of our connections and associations, good or bad. The Bible says, “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17), and “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). We must be mindful of who we are giving the privilege of speaking into and influencing our lives.
Some people impart love, mercy, graciousness, positivity, and gratitude into our lives. Others infect us with cynicism, dishonor, negativity, and compromise. The Scripture plainly teaches we will know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:16). Learn to guard your heart from being influenced by people who have little or no good fruit in their lives. Are they faithful to the local church? Do they faithfully participate in ministry? Do they give faithfully? Do they share their faith and invite people to church? Do they actively walk in love, practice mercy, and control their tongue? If not, be careful connecting with them because you will start to manifest what they have been manifesting. You may just need to quarantine yourself from people like that unless and until they start showing signs of life and positive impartation.
The key is to make sure we are imparting life to others while maintaining diligence over what we are exposed to ourselves. The reality is that we are all extremely contagious and we infect others with our spirit, our spirituality, our attitude, our thinking, and our behavior. Let’s make sure our associations result in positive impartation for ourselves and others with the result that we get stronger as believers, grow in maturity, and become more effective as witnesses of Jesus Christ.
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