It is hard for a ministry or Church congregation, that is struggling with infighting and strife, to experience and enjoy the blessing of the Lord. Even though the blessing of the Lord is there for them to enjoy, strife will keep them away from it. It will make you lacking behind as a Minister of the gospel, in receiving all that you’ll need from God in fulfilling your call.
Even while you may still be struggling to get on target with your financial goals; strife will continually drain away whatever little money, that you may still have remaining down the drain. It will cause you to be spending money on things, that are unnecessary to you in the ministry. Strife will blindside your focus away from the message of Christ, into managing the issues that are related to it. And in most cases the Devil will make sure that, you are spending all of your time, energy and financial resources in managing those issues.
Strife is a sin. A very dangerous sin that does has the ability, to spread around so quickly like cancer, in destroying everything that you have been working for. Christians who are living in strife are living in sin. It is evil and a lie from hell, which has been directed to stop the flow of God’s anointing over your life. It will kill your vision and dream; as it drains you of all that you have in fulfilling it.
But the smartest thing for you to always do, is to run away from it. Don’t ever put yourself in a position, where you are managing strife in your marriage, family life and with people. It will wear you out and burn you out of the ministry, and destroy your relationships. Strife will steal all of your riches in Christ Jesus away from you; including your physical health. You will regret ever trying to manage it.
Now there is a big difference between strife and conflict management. Conflict management and resolution can be healthy, in helping you to recast your vision much more effectively. The resolution of a conflict is an effective way, of realigning all your resources together; as you move ahead against the enemy. But strife does no good to anyone. It is an unnecessary evil, that the enemy hangs around your neck in manipulating you to go against God.
Stay on the love lane, and not on the striving way
Do you know that there are many Preachers of the gospel today, who are quitting the ministry due to strife? But the love of God in your life, is your greatest weapon in conquering it. Yes, strife in your marriage, home, Church, ministry and in the world around you can be defeated; by your ability to stay strong in the love of God.
You do have a Christian duty to maintain a peaceful and loving relationship, with all the people concerned in the strife (Romans 12:18). God’s love (agape) working in you, will chase that striving demon off your back. And God’s love working in you will always win.
Apostle Peter wrote that:
“Above all, have fervent and unfailing love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins [it overlooks unkindness and unselfishly seeks the best for others].”
1 PETER 4:8 AMP
Staying in the love lane of God towards all men, will help you to overlook the mistakes of others. Loving others as a Christian demands that you be fervent with it. It has to be your passion, if you want to live a healthy spiritual life. It may be tough initially, but if you persevere by staying strong, as you keep your focus on loving such people, you will eventually overcome (Ephesians 3:17). But you don’t ever want to lose your passion in loving people. That’s the biggest secret to always put the Devil on the run.
Loving people is the very core of your Christian message; especially loving the difficult Christians who are in strife against you. You can’t call yourself a Christian, if you can’t love them. It may be hard and tough, but it is possible. It is the best thing that you can do, in staying away from strife.
The scriptures says that:
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”
1 John 4:18-21 NIV
Your fellow Christian brothers and sister, that are in strife with you needs to be loved. God loves them just as much as He loves you. If you don’t want what they are using against you, to hinder your relationship with God; you’d better start loving them now.
Loving them has nothing to do with how you feel about the issues. It has everything to do with the very nature of God in you. God commands that you love them, especially when you don’t feel good about it. They may be spreading lies and negative things concerning you; but you do have a Christian duty to love and bless them. Note that you will have much more to loose, if you do not love them. Holding grudges against them will eat up your finances, your health, your marriage and if you are not careful; your Church and ministry also.
The people who are in strife, uses it as a weapon to make you fearful of them. The enemy uses it to torture you, in an attempt to make you stay away from living by faith. Your faith for financial breakthrough becomes weak, when you are in strife. Watch it and stop it before it starts gulping your money.
Strife is a manifestation of the fruit of the flesh, which is engineered by Satan to torment and torture you, into giving in to financial pressures. And that’s how the enemy works. His aim is to keep you away from financial prosperity. He knows that you are financially blessed of God, since you are standing in the perfect will of God. Satan can’t stop you from the perfect will of God; but he will use those financial pressures through strife to slow you down. And if you are not resisting him by standing in the love of God, he will keep the pressures up on you; until your vision or dream becomes stalled and unfulfilled.
Your ability to stay in the love of God, with all the parties that are striving, can also become your greatest strength in fulfilling the will of God. You can bless people by loving them. The Devil wants you to be tight fisted or stingy with your finances. He knows that stinginess will deprive you of the power to prosper.
A tightly fisted person can’t give. He can’t sow seeds. And if he can’t sow seeds into the lives of others, there is no harvest coming his way. But God’s love in your life will cause you to sow financial seeds into others, even when you don’t feel good about them. You may be sowing seeds in very difficult circumstances, but your harvest is very huge. God will richly bless you for loving them, instead of staying in strife with them.
You’ve got to always learn how to stay away, from people who are living in strife. It is very dangerous. You don’t want God to go against you, because of them. Keep yourself in the love of God towards them. There are people you may not agree with; but you do have a duty to keep yourself in the love of God towards them.
Strife will keep you from being blessed
Strife will keep you away from the flow of God’s blessing into your personal life. And whatever affects your personal life, affects those around you also. When you are walking in love, you are able to get strife out of your life. You are able to keep the flow of God’s blessing open into your life, by walking in love. Walking in the love of God will cause you to live a prosperous Christian life; while those who are living in strife, are really struggling to experience the prosperity of the Lord.
Oftentimes what those who are living in strife, will call the blessing of the Lord; is the sweat or labor of their own hands. But in reality they are just one step away from poverty. Others among them may be rich; but the enemy creates sicknesses or marital issues through strife, to keep them away from enjoying the blessing of God. They are very close to living in poverty; because of their works in the flesh, which causes them to be tight fisted, as they are hoarding the blessing of the Lord instead of spreading it.
We are blessed to be a blessing. We are healed to heal others. And we are saved to help others in receiving salvation. You can’t create wealth by hoarding money. Even the world’s economists will tell you that, it’s a bad financial decision. People who hoard money are not only stingy. They are living in poverty. No, you invest and reinvest in viable ventures and individuals around you. God will use whatever is around your life to be a blessing back to you. That’s how you create wealth around your world through the blessing of the Lord. But strife will hinder your ability to see the good in others, so as to invest in them.
Remember that:
“It is the LORD’s blessing that brings wealth, and no effort can substitute for it.”
Proverbs 10:22 NABRE
Your own struggles, hard work or efforts to get wealth, will get you down into the dirty tactics of the systems of this world. You can call it whatever you want, but if you have no peace of God with it; it will ruin you. You can’t have faith in men, if you can’t love them. By being free to love people, you are creating a barrier against the Devil, that he can’t cross. It frees you from all human efforts and hard works. You then will rather want to be a blessing, than to be blessed yourself. Human efforts or hard works can not create wealth, but the blessing of the Lord does.
James said:
“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”
James 5:1-3 NIV
This is what a person who lives in strife, will call the blessing of the Lord. His own efforts and hard works to create wealth by hoarding it, will eventually make him stingy. It will all be gone before he knows it into the hands of the righteous:
The scripture says:
“A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.”
Proverbs 13:22 NIV
Whenever a Church or ministry is continually having strife, it is a sign that the enemy is trying to hinder their spiritual growth. They set out to accomplish something for God, but the Devil is using strife to stop them. And due to the fact that what they are doing in the flesh, overrules their spiritual desires; their finances gets under attack also.
But the desire of the flesh in them needs to die, for the spiritual desires to be reignited, so that God can revive them. Churches and ministries that are struggling with strife, needs a revival of God’s love among them. By being open in loving them, God will be able to use you to take the revival of love to them.
Why can’t you just be at fault?
The love for money has opened the floodgate of strife, into the lives of many Christians today. Believers in Christ don’t have to be holding grudges against one another. But it does happen, as some do take one another to courts sometimes (see 1 Corinthians 6:1-11). They will tell lies against fellow Christians; and exhibit many more sinful natures of their flesh, because of their greedy quest for ungodly financial prosperity. It has become one of the biggest hurdles, to love and unity among Christians today. It is sinful and shameful. A disgrace that harms the power of God’s love within His body.
Apostle James said:
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
James 4:1-3 NIV
Evidently according to James, a believer in Christ who is in strife, with another believer does not pray. His inability to stand by faith for answers to prayers, gave in to the flesh in him as he strifes, in his attempts to use his own efforts to make things happen, without using his faith in God. These are believers who will rather trust, in their connections and social relationships with people, rather than having faith in God to bless them. They will always seek to give men the glory that belongs to God. That’s why they often end up striving and engaging in smear campaigns, against their fellow Christians; because they have no faith to sustain what they have. God’s love can not manifest through strife. Flee from it.
The scriptures says:
“Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?”
I Corinthians 6:7 NKJV
Why can’t you let your fellow Christian wrong you? Why not allow yourself to be cheated, so that you can stand free in the love of God towards them? Don’t give the enemy the opportunity, to use strife to prevent you from being blessed by God. When they do you wrong or cheat you, while you are walking in love towards them; then God will surely become your reward. God will bless you in a way that will make the Devil mad. No, man can bless you as God wants to. Stay in love.
Wherever the perfect will of God is known, you will always be able to set your priorities right. Wrong financial decisions comes from, setting the wrong priorities in whatever you are doing. People who will often use God’s money to do, what the Lord never called them to do, will always fall behind in finances. You can’t be spending God’s money all the time, on what He never called you into, and still expects Him to keep on blessing you.
You’ve got to know the number one thing that you’re called into. The Devil is a master manipulator. He will try to manipulate you out of the perfect will of God, because he wants to stop you and destroy you.
The most effective way to stop him, as you are resisting him by faith, is to start walking in love. Don’t ever allow the Devil to keep you from walking in love with your fellow Christian brothers and sisters. You may not agree on many things with them, but you do need to be walking in love towards them.
That’s how you can slam the door at the Devil. He can’t stand before you, when you are walking in love. Love weakens the power of strife to stop your financial prosperity. And your faith can’t work to bring you financial prosperity, if you are walking in strife instead of love. Keep your eyes on your love walk, and get yourself out of strife.
You’ve got to always put a godly order around your anointing, in creating an atmosphere that God can work with in boosting your finances. Strife and infighting will block the flow of financial wisdom from God, to bless your work in the Kingdom. Clean up the mess and let the love of God start manifesting in power to prosper you.
This also works in marital relationships between a man and his wife. If two people living together are not allowing themselves to be wronged, they can’t prosper in that relationship. God will never bless a mess. You’ve got to learn how to give way to others, if you want to receive from them. Keep strife off your home. It will destroy the lives of your children and your lives also. Stay in love always.
Stop striving about words
Wherever there is profanity and idle talks, the Devil works on it to destroy. Have you ever noticed that gossips, profanity and idle talks about Christians does has the tendency, to spread faster than the gospel that is being preached? The Devil is the one who is using such things to destroy the finances of Christians.
Paul once advised Timothy:
“Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
II Timothy 2:14-19 NKJV
These things do have the tendencies to spread like cancer, even within the body of Christ. The Devil uses such things to divide Christians, by creating strife against the prospering believers. So keep your Church and ministry away from gossips, profanity and idle talks. Such things may be lies or made up stories, that has been directed at smearing a prosperous Christian in your midst. It will affect your ability to prosper financially, if you are engaging in such gossips or talks against fellow believers. Don’t give the Devil a foothold. Stay in the love lane.
Remember that the judgement of God, is really the harvesting of the seeds of words that you sowed. Words that are sown in gossips, idle talks and in profanities will be eventually harvested at judgement time. God is not the one condemning you. Your own seeds of words are condemning you. It is what you sowed in vain talking and negative confessions about others, that you will reap in your life. Your own tongue will judge you.
There are certain things in the spiritual realm, that are very dangerous for you to be saying, about fellow Christians and the unbelievers. A Christian does needs to be very careful (as another example); about what is being said and listened to, concerning his nation’s ruling leaders, especially since he lives under their anointing as rulers in that nation. Their spiritual authority over you as rulers, can affect your ability to prosper in anything under their anointing. You can’t tap from that anointing if you are engaged in smear talks, gossips and profanity about them. Your words about them can affect, your ability to prosper under the corporate authority of those leaders.
God is the one who has put them in their positions of authority over you. You might have voted or not voted for them; but God is the one who moved in peoples’ heart, to elect them into their positions of authority. You are supposed to be praying for your national leaders, and not to be engaging in smear talks about them (read 1 Timothy 2:1-5 and Romans 13:1-7).
In the natural world around you, it may be okay to say certain things. And these things will always come from your tongue to hurt you. Your angels are surprised by certain things, that you often say about others. Those words are empowering Satan against you. You are the one hindering your own power to prosper, by what you are saying out of your mouth. Be very careful. It is always safer for you to pray for others and love them, instead of empowering the enemy against yourself and them. By judging them, you are condemning yourself into judgement also.
You can’t be effective in preaching the gospel, if you are encouraging these sinful virtues around your personal life, and around your congregation or in the ministry. They are poisonous and slow killers. But by preaching the gospel in season and out of season, you are able to get focused on the things that matters most to God.
The love of money will separate you from the love of God
God will never bless a mess. Put your house in order, so that the Kingdom’s finances can begin to flow with ease, in providing all that you will need to fulfill your vision. You can see from the example in the early Church (from last week), that you will be truly blessed of God, if you start doing the right things.
Within the early Church you can see how, the enemy was using the love of money, to create discrimination and strife as they were growing. The Devil’s plan was to stop them. Money was coming in as souls were getting saved, and the enemy wanted to stop them.
The scripture says:
“Some time later, as the number of disciples kept growing, there was a quarrel between the Greek-speaking Jews and the native Jews. The Greek-speaking Jews claimed that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of funds.”
Acts 6:1 GNB
All of a sudden the presence of money, became the ground for discrimination among Christians in the early Church. The body of Christ today is not exempted from this, because the same Devil who was working at that time, is still doing the same things among Christians today. All of a sudden race, color and language became a big problem within the early Church. The love for money instead of love for God, is the main source of disunity today among Christians. But you can defeat the Devil with his tactics, by choosing to always be a giver and not a stingy Christian. Stay in love and be a blessing, to reap a good harvest from God.
Paul said:
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.””
2 Corinthians 9:6-9 NIV
But you’ve got to be very careful, when people start talking about their own people, against another set of people around you. You are a Minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to save the whole wide world and not just the Jewish, your nation or theirs alone. By consecrating yourself fully for the preaching of the gospel, you will be able to silence the enemy, just as the early apostles did. What God did within the Church at Jerusalem, will begin to happen around you in your ministry. You will begin to see great miracles of salvation, healings and deliverances taking place.
Don’t allow power grabbers around you
The scriptures again showed us the influence which money was having on the early Church. In the Acts of the apostles chapters 4:32-5:11; we can see how Ananias and Sapphira were both trying to gain influence within the Church with money.
The scriptures says:
“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
Acts 5:1-4 NIV
This is the type of a stingy mentality with people, who are in strife within the body of Christ. They will always seek to manipulate the anointing over your life, because of their quest for power and influence within the body of Christ. Avoid these types of people. They are power-grabbers, who will stop at nothing to exploit the people of God.
Don’t ever put power-grabbers in positions of authority around your ministry; especially those who will stop at nothing in using money to manipulate. They will destroy everything that you are building. The enemy uses such people to create divisions around the people of God. You don’t need them at all. They will not mind running you out of town or the ministry, in their evil pursuit for power within the body of Christ.
You need humbled people around you. Those who are ready and serious to listen to you teach, preach, instruct and guide others; are often the ones who will stick with you in troubled times. They believe in you, that’s why they like to listen to you. And the Lord will promote them right before your eyes. You will see them prospering with the same messages that you are preaching.
But God’s finances will never flow, wherever the power-grabbers are in leadership positions. All they do is to drain you continually of funds to do the work of the Lord. You can see this from the examples in the Church at Jerusalem (Acts 6:1).
It was because of them that the early Church had to evolve the Diaconate. The evolution of the Diaconate in the early Church, is an example of how strife can successfully be turned, into a great opportunity for conflict management and resolution among Christians. The early Church was able to get rid of the power grabbers, and recast the vision for the Apostles, in order for them to be more committed to “prayer and the preaching of the word of God”.
And if you are not motivating yourself in fulfilling your vision; then forget about it, because these power grabbers will eventually run you out of town or the ministry. You don’t need them around you. You are the one who heard God’s voice. He spoke to you alone, and not to a bunch of “religious bureaucrats”.
You need to be careful in keeping an eye on the money flow into your ministry, so as to be diligent in allocating necessary funds to fulfill, what the Lord told you to do. You’ve got God’s anointing over your life, in directing the flow of funds into the right departments. Don’t spend God’s finances without a clear direction from Him. Don’t be moved by emotions and feelings in allocating money. As a Minister of the gospel there is the tendency to show compassion towards certain things or people. Be very careful not to let Satan use people around you to tempt you with money. It is very easy to fall for that satanic plot. Use that anointing wisely.
God will always lead you and guide you in handling the Kingdom’s finances wisely. Money doesn’t rule over you. You rule over money, and you tell money what you want it to do for you. That’s how you are standing in the financial freedom which Christ had given you. You are an overcomer.
