A Look In the Mirror

Mirrors are great! Think of how bad we would all look if it weren’t for mirrors! If you want to know what you look like, you look in the mirror. That’s what mirrors are for.
The Bible tells us another way to know what we look like: look at our friends. Our friends, in many ways, mirror what we are like. Consider this verse: “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor 15:33).
Granted, the wording of this verse tends to obscure its meaning. Let me rephrase it for you in a little more understandable way. “Do not be deceived: evil companions corrupt good morals.”
Perhaps you have good morals: you don’t talk dirty, you don’t listen to worldly music, you go to church, you sing in the choir, and you do what you’re supposed to do all the time. You may be quite proud of these things, because you’re a “good kid.”
Even though you’re a good kid, you may enjoy the company and attention of the “cooler crowd,” other kids that you know do not hold the same values and standards that you do. Maybe you can be a good influence on them by hanging around with them.
This verse warns of the foolishness of that kind of thinking, because just the opposite is true. Despite your good intentions and your wholesome lifestyle, sinful friends will corrupt you. They will wear away at your resistance to sin and ungodliness. It will happen slowly, like rust eating away at the underside of your car. It won’t happen overnight, but it will eventually harm your testimony, your values, and the way you think. Your friends will affect you.
If you want to see what you look like, take a look in the mirror— the mirror of your friends. Their patterns of life will change you a little at a time, and if you do not choose wise and godly friends, your evil companions will eventually corrupt your good morals.