James 3.16 tells us that where there is envying and strife there is confusion and every evil work. Strife is like the opposite of the love of God – it is doing things that cause conflict, causing people to be against each other, to fight, to quarrel, to clash, to be in competition with someone.
Strife and envy as seen here in James 3.16 are really the two super-weapons of satan, they are the two that will introduce every evil work into a situation. If a church is in strife, satan can do whatever he wants. Strife is how satan gets born again Christians to the divorce court, how he deceives Christians to stop going to church, how he separates people from the other people they need to love to get where they are going. Because satan cannot kill our born again spirit, cannot destroy our new birth, cannot take the love right out of our spirit, so he tries to get strife in our souls – in our thinking, our emotions and our decisions so we cannot walk in the power of love and be in that place that never fails.
The Roman Empire had a Latin motto, divide et impera, which in English, translates to “divide and conquer”, it meant if you keep people attacking each other, you can get them to do anything you want. It actually comes from satan, causing people to break into factions and miss out on the power of love and unity.
You see satan knows that when we come to the unity of the faith, we will be a perfect man, standing as tall as Jesus Himself (Ephesians 4.13). A church in unity will beat the devil every day, see salvations, healings, power and life in levels we have never seen because we have not resisted strife. It makes us as tall as Jesus, as mature as Jesus, as powerful as Jesus.
When a church is in unity, we will be walking in a way that cannot be stopped. We will walk with the Lord together and we will change the world. The problem is so many Christians today really do not care about unity, about oneness of heart. The church in Acts had singleness of heart and people were getting saved every single day. The devil hated that decade and never wants to deal with that again, so he tries his hardest to get strife into every church.
The pastor preaches 100 things on Sunday, but we disagree with one, so we leave the church. We end up in so much strife, we have to go for a walk down the beach Sunday morning because we cannot function in any church! We get upset over the org chart in the church, and that’s not God’s will, we are supposed to honour those who lead us, not cause strife.
Strife comes from hell, and is demonic and opens the door to every evil work. It’s that simple. If you disagree with that statement, you are in strife with God, let alone other people. You cannot live in strife and not have evil things in your life. Love opens the door for good things.
Strife is what keeps Christians babies. They have no good things in their life, they cannot help others, serve others, love others. They sabotage their serving, their ministry and their lives. They will still go to Heaven when they die, but earth will never be fun for them. Strife keeps you in the flesh, acting like a toddler, rather than in the spirit being mature.
The Corinthian church – according to Paul got into strife, arguing over their favourite speakers. We think that’s not serious, but it is so serious. If you are arguing with someone who your favourite speaker is, if you are trying to get a timetable of who is speaking when at a conference to decide who to hear rather than attend the conference as a living organism, leading from one speaker to another, you are in strife. You are a baby Christian. You are carnal.
Strife makes you selfish, seeks your own good, does not honour others, and will fuss over the tiniest things. You have to decide to deal with strife in your life – you have to decide to resist it and if you do yield to it, repent quick and get it out of your life. Strife brings every evil thing.
Get out of strife. Stop fussing over everything that doesn’t go your way, and enjoy what does. Love God, love people, honour those over you, and be humble. Selah.
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