The heart of influence by Deon Crafford

Matthew 5:13-16 You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Jesus is calling his followers to live out their faith in a way that is visible to others, to use their actions to glorify God, and to be a positive influence in the world. This passage teaches us to be a positive influence in the world, to be an example of God’s love, to guide others in understanding the love of God and to live out our faith in a visible way to bring glory to God.

This piece underlined is a conclusion written by ChatGPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformation), under the prompt “write commentary about Matthew 5:13-16.” This nifty technology development can now literally replace your thinking and generate essays, letters, answers and whatever else you ask from it. Go play with it on OpenAI.com and be both stunned and scared. Schools would need to start discerning whether learners have produced their own work or whether it was done by ChatGPT. Why, you can even prompt it to write something appropriate for an age group. Our thinking is being replaced radically.

But our love can never be replaced by technology code. If you’d never thought that you’d be an influencer, then think again. We’re not accidental influencers; we’re so called by Jesus Himself. Regardless of technology development and where it may go, the love of Christ will only be an influence in our world through us. That is an astonishing mandate and calling. We can write commentary till we’re blue in the face (and ChatGPT can do that anyway) and we can preach up storms, but if we have not love we’re clanging empty tins. We’re called to put our heart and soul into influencing. Nothing less.

Love to all