The Company You Keep

In Proverbs 13:20, the Bible says, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”

Proverbs 27:19, “As in water face answereth to face, so the hearth of man to man.” 1 Samuel 10:5 reads, “After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines; and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery and a tabret and a pipe and a harp before them and they shall prophesy. And the spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man.”

It is the company that you keep that will decide whether you will turn to another man or not. Your company decides so many things about you. In 1 Corinthians 15:33, the Bible says, “Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners.”

It has been well said, show me your friend and I will tell you the kind of person you are. As a matter of necessity, if you partner with dogs, you will soon learn how to bark. If you partner with pigs, you will soon learn how to litter a place, even if the place was clean when it was handed over to you.

If you partner with eagle, you would soon learn how to fly high. The hard fact about life that many of us don’t realise is that you become those you closely associate with, whether for good or for bad. Many major sorrows, many major setbacks spring out of relationship with wrong people.

The company you keep may decide your destiny. Many of us need to break free from a particular company that has held us down. Because in life, the less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. There are some people, the more you associate with them, the more your life would go down. If a fornicator is not a nuisance to you, then it is sign that you are a fornicator yourself. If a liar is not a nuisance to you, it is a sign that you are a liar yourself.

If somebody who doesn’t want to do anything is not a nuisance to you, then you are a loafer yourself. If a drunk is not a nuisance to you, then you are a drunk yourself. If a womaniser is not a nuisance to you, it shows you are a womaniser too.

If a smoker is not a nuisance to you, although you don’t put the stick in your mouth, you’re a smoker yourself. People who want to fulfil their destiny are very impatient with negative thinking and negative acting people.

A woman noticed that her friend was just making money, getting rich, buying cars; this was a woman who was selling palm oil before and was very poor. All of a sudden, she stopped selling palm oil; she began to buy cars and build houses. Her friend did not know what she did. So this woman began to tell her friend, “Show me the way.” That friend of hers didn’t want to tell her anything. But as she still pressurises her, her friend said, “Okay, I will take you to one baba somewhere.” And they went to this baba, and the baba said, “Are you ready to do what your friend did before she prospered?” She said, “Yes.” She didn’t ask what her friend did. She just said yes. The baba said, “Okay, no problem. Swallow this and that; take this one put it in the fridge, give it to all your children to eat and your husband. Then come back in two weeks time.” She went home with these things. Immediately it was two weeks, her first son took ill and began to roll on the floor crying “mummy, help me!” So the first person the woman called was her friend and told her about the sickness of the boy. The friend said, “But baba told you and you said you are ready to do what I did?” She said, “Ah! What did you do?” The woman now said, “Don’t you know that I lost my first son to get the money.” So, the woman now said, “Is that the kind of money? I don’t want, take me back there.” She carried her son and ran to the baba’s house and said, “Baba, I’m not doing again, I don’t want the money.” The company you keep can make and unmake you.

Failure wants your company, but you would not have to go into the company of failure. You don’t have to let the failure enter through the door into you. The truth is that you become like those you’re associating with. Then as you grow in your life, your associations would change according to your maturity. You may have friends who would want you to move forward. You may have friends who want you to stay where they are.

You may have friends who cannot help you to climb, but they want you to crawl. You could have friends who would choke your vision and your dream. But the bottom line is this and that’s the truth: any friend that you have that does not increase you will eventually decrease you. You have to now insinuate yourself from negative people with negative ideas. Any company that you have joined now that is assigned to pull your life down, I separate you from them in the name of Jesus. But you say you have known each other from the secondary school, the question is since you knew the person from secondary school, what value has he added to your destiny? One of the saddest days in my life, was a day I left home very happy because they were doing a student re-union of my former secondary school. It was for our own class and I was looking forward to going there. I was looking forward to seeing people and calling them the nicknames we used to call them. My own nickname was “Omoolopa” – child of a police man – my father was a police man. So we all had nicknames like that. I was so much looking forward to it. When we arrived at that meeting, by the time I spent five minutes, I became unhappy. I could see that basically all of them had remained as they were when we were in the school. Those who were running after girlfriend then, now have many wives. Those who were telling lies then, they are now 419 people. The only few people who had changed there were those who met Christ. There was one boy in our class, we called him Anikulapo Kuti because he could sing like Fela, and he danced like Fela. By the time he came, he was a wreck. You cannot continue a relationship because it started a long time ago, when it is not adding value to your destiny. Your best friend always operates at night, then you need to break it if you must make heaven and if you must pursue your destiny. But on the other side, no road is too long when you are in the right company. But you will get the worst of the bargain if you’re exchanging ideas with the wrong person. There are some people when you are with them; the time you spend with them is an investment. But there are some people; the time you spend with them is wasted time. There are some people who desire to marry, but anytime you’re in their presence, no Bible study, no prayer. It is only kissing, petting that he would do for hours. No plan about your future. You haven’t found a husband yet, he is an unfriendly friend. But the reality is that, bad behaviour robs us more easily than good behaviour. So some friendships are consistently negative and they hold potential negative consequences for your life. You must break such things. Anytime you notice that you are in the presence of somebody and you don’t feel godly, but feel ungodly, lustful (feeling as in you should commit fornication) or do evil, you better run away from that company. The person is a destroyer.

This is why, sometimes, by the time you get to know a person very well, you discover that the person is a total stranger to your destiny. Which company do you keep? What company are you in now? You must make up your mind that you must break from the company of the chicken and join the company of the angel. You must break from the company of those who don’t have anywhere to go and join the company of those who are going somewhere. You must break loose from the company of those who have re-written their family history in the negative way and join those who are rewriting it in the positive way. If your best friend is an unbeliever, then you should conclude that you are an unbeliever yourself. If something is working like a duck, talking like a duck, swimming like a duck, you would conclude that you are looking at a duck. Many are like this, yet they wonder what is happening?

One boy was telling his mother that she was always criticising him that he was going to place she doesn’t like. He said, “Mummy, you too follow me one day; I used to follow you to church, follow me to where I go one day.” One day mummy said, “Okay, take me there.” He took the mother to a film house. When they entered the cinema hall, the mummy noticed that the whole place was in darkness. She said, “My son, this place is dark.” He said, “Yes they have to show the film at the front. The thing has to be dark.” His mother replied, “Since this people are so comfortable in darkness, then I conclude that they are what the Bible call children of darkness.” The son said, “No don’t call them children of darkness. They are here to watch film.” After sometime, the mummy said, “Now ok, can we pray before we start watching the film?” The boy said, “Ah! Mummy you don’t pray in a place like this. This is embarrassing.” The mummy replied, “Wherever I cannot pray, then I’m in the wrong company. I must go home.” Are you still in the cinema Christian? You go and watch a film, something is wrong somewhere. There are different companies that are available. If you are in the wrong company, use this time to break free. We did not say you should not go and minister to unbelievers so that they can surrender their lives to Jesus. You can minister to them, but you must not join in their iniquity. Light and darkness don’t operate together. There is no relationship between the temple of God and Belial.

These are the companies:

1. Pretenders
2. Exploiters
3. Robbers
4. Betrayer
5. Promise Breakers
6. Cheats
7. Gossips
8. Abusers
9. Competitors’ company
10. Copycats
11. Manipulators
12. The miserable friends
13. Accusers
14. Lazy ones
15. Envious friends
16. Addicts to things like drug, cigarette, alcoholic
17. Proud people
18. Know it all
19. Bully i.e. forcing you to do things
20. Attention seekers
21. The procrastinators
22. Stingy friends
23. The chameleon company
24. The disloyal company
25. The party company
26. The selfish company
27. Parasite friends
28. The actors
29. Defensive company
30. Pessimistic friend
31. The company of failure
32. Unproductive company
33. Sexual friends
34. The liars
35. The demoters
36. The emptiers
37. The spoilers
38. Wasters
39. Equalisers
40. The chicken
41. Average
42. The witchcraft company
43. The familiar spirit company
44. The cult
45. Hell fire friend
46. Prayerless company
47. No Holy Ghost company
48. No Bible company
49. No destiny company
50. No excellence company.

HOW DO I BREAK FREE FROM EVIL COMPANY?

1. You must be born again
2. You must reject counselling from ungodly
3. You must reject counsel from the unproductive
4. You must avoid discussing your problem with somebody who is incapable of bring solutions
5. Don’t follow anyone who is not going anywhere
6. Decide to fortify yourself and your life with right friendship
7. Learn to let go when it is necessary

Note this beloved, there are some people who will abandon you and walk away from you at a stage in your life. There are some people who will separate by themselves without you quarrelling with them. Once you discover that somebody doesn’t want to stay with you, the best thing is to allow them to go. Stop begging them to stay. Stop attaching yourself to somebody who has detached already. Your destiny is never tied to anybody who has detached himself from you. When you’re a prayerful person and you’re working with God and somebody decides to break off, let the person go – it means that the person was not joined to you in the first place.

In Pastoral Ministry, we have two kinds of pastors. We have the pastors we call Pillars. We have the ones we call Scuffles. The pillars will stay. The scuffles always go away. The tragedy of the scuffles is that they would have helped you to build the house but would now go away. The Bible says they were not of us, if they were of us they would not have gone away from us. So if the person is for you, he would not just disjoin himself away from you. You must stop putting your eggs under a dead hen. Many of us need to do some serious thinking. Analyse your friends. Evaluate what they have contributed to your life. Evaluate the havoc they have done to you. Evaluate the terrible advice that they have been giving to you that led you where you are now. Then make up your mind that enough is enough. Your company decides what God would do in your life. Your company decides whether you’re moving forward or you’re moving backward. Your company decides what the Lord would do in your life. When you stay too long in wrong company, sometimes, you block the good company anyway.

Prayer Points

1. Thou power of delayed blessing, die, in the name of Jesus
2. Every discouraging power, I disgrace you.
3. O God, arise and show me favour, in the name of Jesus.

Prayer Points

1. Company of darkness caging my destiny, your time is up, die, in the name of Jesus.
2. Every destiny robber operating in my life, die, in the name of Jesus.
3. O God arise, direct me to a good company where I will be useful for you, in the name of Jesus.
4. Power to locate my right company, fall upon my life, in the name of Jesus.
5. Every witchcraft network manipulating my life, die, in the name of Jesus.
6. Thunder bold of God, begin to scatter the route of any witch troubling me, in the name of Jesus.
7. Let any witchcraft route, constructed against me, become dark and slippery in the name of Jesus.
8. Let the route of my household witchcraft become their graveyard in the name of Jesus.
9. Every power, contending with God’s purpose for my life, fall down and die, in the name of Jesus.
10. Every power, digging the pit of my destiny, be roasted by fire, in the name of Jesus.
11. Every power trading with my destiny, be destroyed by the blood of Jesus.