Series 2 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Strife, Ep 20
Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 6 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series last week discussing the Spirit of Bitterness. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Strife. The series focuses on 7 demons that show up so frequently in our lives that I wanted to address them head on and really focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end out our year. The plan was to enable us to start the 2023 new year with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got so much better which I will share again in a moment as a refresh. The 5 demons we will be addressing in the next 5 weeks are: Insecurity, Impatience, Worry, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the remaining 5. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning as we enter into 2023.
To remind you from last week, as I sat down to hear from the Lord on specifically what content He wanted included, it became clear He wanted me to address the marriage between Him and His church. This is what He asked me to share with you, these are His words for you, not mine.
"There are mainstay areas that need to be cleared out so people can move on and develop their time and relationship with Me in a new way and rid themselves of their heavy burdens and areas that have controlled them or limited them. Break chains and release them for more. My love is waiting to heal deep wounds. Some will think it cannot be done, but they are closing their heart and mind and believing the same lies the devil told Eve and created the first divide. I came to create a bridge over all divides until the divide can be resolved once and for all. You are to show people there is a bridge, they are to take a step onto it and I will meet them there. That's all I ask. Some will walk farther than others, it doesn't matter, I'm on the bridge waiting for everyone."
Last week I introduced the idea of demons falling into 2 categories, silent or loud. What I mean by this is how a person reacts to being demonized can be heard as the demonic spirit begins to work through the person. Strife, like Bitterness, is a loud spirit. We don't use the word strife a lot in today's vocabulary, so let's go over exactly what we mean by "strife". Strife is a strong and ongoing conflict over a fundamental issue. Strife is deeper than argument, broader than disagreement. Strife usually involves bitterness and sometimes violence. So someone who is demonized by a Spirit of Strife will direct it at others, and where you see this most hurtful is in marriages. My initial inspiration on this topic was as a result of what we see play out in marriages or familial relationships. As we move to understand how this demon works against us, I want you to be open to understanding our reactions and how our actions create reactions in others while remembering we are wanting to clear out things keeping us from meeting Jesus on the bridge.
The Demon of Strife will typically be the strongman and with it we will generally see the demons of contention, bickering, argument, quarreling and fighting. There may also be some sides of witchcraft and control coming out as someone uses manipulation in order to get their way in an argument. The problem with this particular strongman is that no matter what the end result is, they are not satisfied. You could end up compromising with someone who has a demon of strife, and it will never be good enough because they would still rather have the argument than get their way and have peace. You cannot win in this because there is no end to allow for a win. The subject matter will just rotate onto something else. Think of a Ferris wheel. You never get off of it, you just keep switching seats.
Let's take a look at what the Bible tells us about strife.
Proverbs 13:10, "Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice."
Proverbs 17:1, "Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife."
Proverbs 18:6, "The lips of fools bring them strife, and their mouths invite a beating."
Proverbs 20:3, "It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel."
Proverbs 22:10, "Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended."
Proverbs 26:21, "As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife."
That gives us a pretty good idea that strife will lead us absolutely nowhere.
I know someone who from all appearance's sake has an issue with strife. I would not say I am friends with him, but I know him. We'll go ahead and just call him, John. For about the last maybe year or so I have been noticing that John likes to say things that are intended to skewer people. He couches it under the pretense of using scripture as a way to speak truth to people, but that is not actually what he is doing. He references a scripture and then proceeds to pontificate for quite a while on his thoughts on the scripture and why everybody out there is going to hell. He literally said this. I want to add that the audience he is speaking to are Christians and he is talking about Christians. I generally try to ignore him, not because I don't want the conflict but because usually these types of people just want attention and to be held in high regard and by ignoring him, I am simply dismissing his discussions. Conflict for me is not an issue, I don't shy away from that when it is the right thing to do. About a month ago, it was sometime in October, it was on a Sunday, I just couldn't ignore him. He was attacking Christians who had second marriages in a blanket statement and that particular day I had just had enough of his rhetoric. Not everyone who was hearing this were mature Christians and it was confusing new believers who were in second marriages. Many times, when he speaks he is not biblically sound and not only was he not Biblically sound on this topic but the way he was choosing to address people about it was just too far out of bounds for me to not address it. He was saying things in a way to shame them. So, I started my response to him in such a way to give him a chance to back out of the condemning position he had taken and asked him what was his purpose in what he was saying. I asked if he was trying to hit Christians with a stick or was he just being self-righteous. I told him it was not his job to pass judgment on these people and that if someone is remarried, they answer to Jesus and they can continue to have a fruitful life. I also indicated that there will likely be people in heaven who have remarried with a crown more adorned than his. I told him to stop creating this confusion among his own brothers and sisters in Christ and cautioned him to ask the Lord about what he should be saying before he says it. I explained that if he did that, he would likely find that he had less to say. Unbelievably, or believably, he doubled down and told me that no one who is in a second marriage will go to heaven, and…and that I must believe in a liberal God who lets sin slide and that was my choice. Now that type of response is indicative of someone who wants to continue to argue. So I responded with "that type of response further illustrated his immaturity in Christ and that what he said was not Holy Spirit inspired and certainly was not how Jesus would respond. I told him I thought he needed to study the Bible more and look at how Jesus ministered to people. I encouraged him to understand his role, and how the Holy Spirit would carry it out, that his responses were not Christ centered. John didn't like that either and he called me a Pharisee, which makes zero sense, zero. What I was saying was about as anti Pharisitical as it gets. He said if Jesus were here I would say Jesus was not being Christ centered and that he was being mean. Again, makes no sense. He then told me the truth will convict me and not accepting the truth doesn't change the truth. Now let me point out, I never even addressed the scripture with him. So, he is now arguing with himself over this issue. My next response was simple. He was missing the point and if he continues to do things his way one day he will see he is not yielding fruit as Christ did. I then told him the conversation is over, do not say anything else. At that point someone else spoke up and corrected him on his biblical stance.
When I think of John, I wonder what motivates him to be so, well it comes across as hateful to other Christians. Can you imagine John coming at a non-believer? It's no wonder so many people hate Christians when that's what they get to experience. I have not heard John say anything since that day, so hopefully he is doing some work with the Holy Spirit. I understand what he wanted to do; he just went about it all wrong and in my opinion had the enemy influencing him as he did it. I think if John would have been doing that in front of Paul in the first century, Paul's response would have been swift to correct him as well. Let's take a look at False Teachers and the Love of Money
1 Timothy 6:2-5, "These are the things you are to teach and insist on. 3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain."
John may not have been seeking financial gain in all the strife he has caused in the past, but his interest in creating controversy certainly applies.
We can't let strife enter our lives and dictate how we then interact with people. When it is occurring in marriages, it is truly sad. Sometimes we put our spouses' feelings below the feelings of others because we know they will still be there even if we treat them poorly, or we do that to our parents or our children because maybe they can't leave. That's a horrible attitude to take. We need to wake up and see our spouse, our children or our parents as Christ sees them. The enemy will do whatever it takes to destroy relationships and tear apart families. Strife is a well-known way to do that. Paul says this in Romans 1:29, "They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
So how do we evict strife? Well, we first need to acknowledge it. In acknowledging it I would also examine in what relationships are you exhibiting strife? Is it only your marriage? Is it only at work? Is it everywhere, all your relationships? You want to know this because you want to get to the root of why you are creating this in your relationships. Has your spouse done things and this is your reaction? We can't pay back wrong with wrong, it won't work. Were you passed over for a promotion at work? Have you asked the Lord if that is the promotion He wanted for you? Are your kids acting out so all you can do is yell? Figure out what you can control with your kids and work on that as a start. I will tell you the other day, one of my kids did something that I was so upset with, so upset, but he is 24, he is financially independent, he used his own money and it's not anything I can control or should control. But as his mom, I was still upset and he knew I would be, but he was upfront with me and walked me through his decision process with it, none of which he needed to do, but out of respect and love for me he did. I listened, was still not happy, but there's nothing I can do about it. I forbade him to do it again, which he knows is my way of saying I don't want him to do it. I have also forbidden him from ever getting a motorcycle because I don't want him to get hurt and so far so good on that one. I'm just being his mom and he is ok with it. The next morning however, I did go to the Lord about it, because truthfully, I was upset and the Lord helped we to find a way to get past it and let it go. I then texted my son and said. Hey, I may not like what you are doing, but I liked the way he approached why and how he wanted to do it and that one thing I wanted for all my kids was for them to know how to make a sound decision and he excels at that. Thanksgiving is a few days away and he will come home for Thanksgiving and I don't want my upsetedness to come back. I then won't see him for a while because he is leaving for Japan for I have no idea how long. So in that example, I acknowledged it, then I addressed it head on. In this case, I addressed it with my son. Now, truthfully, initially I reacted and he could see I was visibly not happy, so not happy. We kept talking, more him than me, but we kept communication open so it didn't become what I would never have wanted it to become. The next morning I went to the Lord, so we acknowledge it, understand it, address it and then release it to the Lord. In it's place the Lord gave me peace.
If we look at the Armor of God, in Ephesians 6:15, "and having shod your feet with the gospel of peace." We see that peace is part of what we need for spiritual warfare, which is a part of the eviction process.
We are given the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness"
Paul tells us in Romans 16:20, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."
Again in Romans 15:33, "Now the God of peace be with you all"
And in Romans 8:6, For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace"
And finally in Romans 5:1, "Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;"
So our steps are to
1. Acknowledge it: we can't hide it or hide from it
2. Understand it: what is driving it, what relationships
3. Address it: either work thru it with the person or work through the situation driving it
4. Release it to the Lord
5. Replace the void with the peace of the Holy Spirit. If we are going to evict the enemy and his influence, we need to replace it and fill ourselves with what the Holy Spirit provides. Use your scriptures as you pray to help you gain strength.
This is some work, but if it's necessary, then it's necessary. We want to clear out all these areas so we can have our path, our minds and hearts open to meet the Lord on the bridge. He can heal anything anything.
I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know someone who is struggling with this, please share this podcast with them. It can change their life if they are willing.
Ok so as always let's recap the Top Show Points:
· We are continuing our focus on our 7-part series focus for the next 6 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. This week we discussed the spirit of Strife.
· The 5 demons we will be addressing in the next 5 weeks are: Insecurity, Impatience, Worry, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the remaining 5. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning for 2023.
· A few weeks ago I sat down to hear from the Lord on specifically what content He wanted included, it became clear He wanted me to address the marriage between Him and His church. I shared what He wanted me to share with you.
· Strife is a strong and ongoing conflict over a fundamental issue. Strife is deeper than argument, broader than disagreement. Strife usually involves bitterness and sometimes violence.
· The Demon of Strife will typically be the strongman and with it we will generally see the demons of contention, bickering, argument, quarreling and fighting. There may also be some sides of witchcraft and control coming out as someone uses manipulation.
· Bible Verses: Proverbs 13:10, Proverbs 17:1, Proverbs 18:6, Proverbs 20:3, Proverbs 22:10, Proverbs 26:21
· Gave you the story of John who liked to argue for the sake of arguing with other Christians
· 1 Timothy 6:2-5
· Romans 1:29
· The steps to evicting Strife:
o Acknowledge it
o Understand it
o Address it
o Release it
o Replace it
· Bible Verses of Peace: Ephesians 6:15, Galatians 5:22, Romans 16:20, Romans 15:33, Romans 8:6, Romans 5:1
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment
· Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community. I am working on planning some live events and the only way to be included in that is to be a part of our Warrior Community. Just visit our website, www.conqueringourunseenenemies.com, and join from the Home page or the Resources page.
Have a great week!
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