Stay Strife Free!
by Gloria Copeland
“For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.”
James 3:16
An enemy of love you want to watch out for is the enemy the Bible calls strife. It’s defined as “vigorous or bitter conflict, discord or antagonism.” It means “to quarrel, struggle or clash, to be in competition or conflict.”
Listed in the Scripture right alongside envy, strife is really Satan’s top weapon. It’s the tool he uses to separate believers from one another. Since he doesn’t have the power to steal God’s love out of our hearts, he uses strife to make that love ineffective, so we won’t be able to walk in its never-failing power.
You’ve heard the phrase divide and conquer? That’s the primary strategy the devil uses against the Church. He tries to undermine it by getting Christians to fuss and fight with each other. He does everything he can to keep us apart because he’s terrified we’re all going to “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
BVOV : 27
