Please excuse me while I reference an old cheesy movie. One of my favorite movies when I was a teenager was Karate Kid. Daniel’s arch enemy was the punk kids from the Cobra Kai Dojo. Their instructor was a jerk and a bully, so all his students were bullies as well. Daniel’s instructor was Mr. Miagi, who was very kind and taught Daniel to be responsible with Karate.

The different instructors ultimately had a huge impact on the guys that learned from them, and the students’ lives took a totally different path depending on which instructor they sat under.

Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge. Prov. 19:27

Instructors are all around us. They teach us what they believe in the songs they write. They act out their ideology in the movies they create. They tell us what we should believe in articles and blog posts and straight to our face. Even though we try to be our own person and not be influenced by the message, ultimately the instructors we listen to shape who we become.
God tells us in the passage above to stop listening to the people who are pulling us away from his words. It’s so hard, because these people could be our friends. They could be the musicians that we really enjoy, or the movies we’re dying to see. It’s a big step to put things aside that we’ve held onto for so long. And it’s scary and feels weird to not be “into” what everyone around us is into.
If we realize, though, that those things aren’t as innocent as they seem- realize that they hate our saviour Jesus Christ and want nothing to do with him- then we won’t have such a hard time walking away from them. It starts with loving God’s words and loving good instruction from Jesus Christ. Once we love those things, our love for the things that pull us away from him will fade away.