What is the supreme care of this world? Strife! The right to
be ugly if you want to…the right to talk against your brother if
you want to…the right to be fussy if you want to…the right to
say whatever you want to! The most worldly thing that exists is
strife! Satan is strife itself. It is worldly. It is sin. It is deadly, and
it brings disease on its wings almost 100 percent of the time.
James 3:16 says, “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion
and every evil work.” The Apostle Paul in his letter to the
Galatians listed strife along with adultery, fornication, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, murder and drunkenness (see Galatians
5:19-21). You can see that when a man gets in strife, it is easy
for him to commit murder, adultery or these other things. Strife
is the motivating force. When a man is operating in love, he
won’t act that way. If he is operating in the love of God, he
won’t look at another woman to lust after her. It is when you
are thinking of yourself that lust gets in.
Strife is the number one tool of Satan. Jesus said in Mark
11:25-26, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought
against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive
you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your
Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Unforgiveness
and strife are under the law of sin and death, and God’s forgiveness
through Jesus Christ is the only way the power of this law can
be broken in a person’s life. Each time a person operates in
strife and unforgiveness, he submits to the law of sin and death,
and he cannot get God’s forgiveness until he forgives his brother
and gets the strife out of his life. Satan knows how this works,
and he will try to keep you in strife. He will attack your weakest
area first and break you down if he can.
Make up your mind at this point that you will never again
operate in any area of unforgiveness. You can’t afford to play
around with it. Faith works by love. The very instant you get
into strife will be the very instant your faith begins to falter. If
you notice your faith weakening in some area, look at your
household, your family, your friends—strife is involved somewhere.
Find it, repent of it and get it straightened out. It doesn’t
matter what people have done to you. Love them in spite of it!
Give love and you will get love. It may take a day, a week or a
year, but it will come! Love never fails!
“And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as
hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold,
some sixty, and some an hundred.” When you receive the Word
into your heart, it will bring forth fruit, as much as a hundredfold.
Praise the Lord.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
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