Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, in our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

So let's talk influence today. Leaders have influence, right? Do followers have influence?

I think we all have influence in some way. Labels or categories

of people don't matter so much about this, but certainly influencers typically are leaders because

the more you lead, the more you influence people to follow you. But I think we sometimes settle

for leadership based on position rather than someone who has earned the right to influence us.

Not sure what I mean by that? Well, stay close because I'm going to tell you exactly what I mean

in just a few seconds. I don't know if you're familiar with a story about the Pied Piper,

but it's sort of a horrible tale about this town that has a rat infestation problem, and this man, the Pied Piper, says

he can solve it, and he's promised a reward if he does, and so he starts playing a tune on

his flute-like instrument, and all the rats start coming out of the cracks and crevices,

and they follow him as he plays his tune, and he leads them right off a cliff.

Well, the town stiffs him his reward, and so to get even, he plays his tune again, and this time

gets all the children to follow him into the woods, and they're never seen again.

Like I said, it's a horrible story. I'm not sure we really even know about when we talk about

the pipe piper, but nonetheless, it's kind of an

illustration about how sometimes we blindly follow a leader because of the wrong things, I think,

and I see this happening a lot lately, especially with Christian leaders. When we do this, it's risky,

and here's why. Following a leader not worthy of influence can cause us to, number one, become exposed to skewed or false beliefs. I've talked about this and put your warrior boots on in other places, but just because a leader has a large following doesn't mean they are following God. Two, following a leader not worthy of influence can lead us into a wrong attitude or disillusionment.

Leaders can rub off on us and have an impact on what we begin to feel and think.

Number three, it can compromise our heart when they publicly crash, a leader that isn't in a right place with God,

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