Oprah Winfrey recently announced the latest book to be added to her ‘Book Club’. The book is The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier. I’ve never read it so I don’t know how good it is.

However, the quality of the book is not what I wish to talk about here.

Shortly before Oprah announced on her show the book’s addition to the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, it ranked 288, 958 on the Amazon.com sales list.

Within 3 hours of the show airing it had reached #50. When I heard about it and checked a few hours later, it was at #5, the next day it was the #1 best selling book on Amazon.com.

The publisher refuses to say how many extra copies will be printed now to fill the demand but he says it will be in the hundreds of thousands (the last book Oprah recommended went on to sell 1.5 Million copies).

What is most relevant here is that The Measure of a Man was first published in 2000 and had some success but had fallen way down the sales lists into obscurity. Within a day or so of one woman recommending it on TV, it becomes the best selling book on Amazon and probably the best selling book in America.

That’s power – and that’s an example of why the bible calls us sheep.

For you were like sheep going astray (1 Peter 2:25) is what the bible says about us. It’s no wonder we’re called sheep over and over again in the bible – we are so prone to following the latest trend or fad. We take our eyes off the goal for one moment and lose track of the path instantly.

In the UK, more people die on the freeway every year because their car has broken down and, while they are waiting to be towed, they get hit by another driver than die in ‘normal’ accidents. Why? Because driver’s eyes get drawn to the people stopped at the side of the road and they accidentally steer towards what they are looking at.

We are no different in our every day lives. We see something that is slightly off the path we are following and instantly get drawn towards it, heading off the path and crashing into it full-force.

So how do we resist the ‘sheep’ mentality?

Keep your eyes fixed on God. Read your bible daily, pray constantly, share fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ regularly and focus your life on giving glory to God.

Remember what Paul says in Philippians 3:14:

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus

PS My information on the Oprah Winfrey Book Club came from this article: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/01/26/ap3367322.html