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Strife steals attention, affection, and association—and can keep you from God's best.
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When we look at Genesis 13, we find the first instance of strife recorded in Scripture. Abraham had been called by God with an incredible promise: "I'm going to make you great." Abraham's faith was so strong that he invited his nephew Lot to join him on this journey. They traveled together into the land, and at first, everything seemed to work out perfectly.
But then something happened. The land couldn't sustain both of their possessions. The Bible tells us:
"There was strife between the herdsmen of Abraham's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle." (Genesis 13:7)
In Hebrew, the word for strife here—mariba—means controversy, dispute, quarrel, contention, and tension. The devil saw an opportunity. He knew that if he could create division between Abraham and Lot, he could derail what God wanted to accomplish. But Abraham, being spiritually mature, recognized the problem immediately and refused to let strife consume him.
Abraham said to Lot:
"Let there be no strife, I beg you, between you and me. For we are relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you choose the right hand, then I will go to the left." (Genesis 13:8-9)
Abraham chose peace over possessions. He chose unity over being right.
If you have kids, you've probably noticed something: when you tell them no, they don't accept it. They go find your spouse and ask the same question, hoping for a different answer. They modify their approach. They become sweeter. They look for cracks in your relationships.
The devil operates the same way. He is an opportunist. He prowls around looking for division—not to destroy you outright, but to find the places where unity has broken down. He looks for cracks in your marriage, your friendships, your work relationships, your family.
Ephesians 4:27 warns us:
"Do not give the devil an opportunity to lead you into sin by holding a grudge."
A grudge is just a ramp. The devil doesn't immediately take you to a glaring scene. He starts small. You hold onto anger. You nurture resentment. You cultivate bitterness. And before you know it, three years later, he's led you down the highway of sin.
The word opportunity in this verse is significant—it means a space, a portion marked off from surrounding space. It means power. It means an occasion for acting. When you give the devil an opportunity through strife, you're giving him power and space to work in your life.
1 Peter 5:8 tells us:
"The devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour."
That's literally all he does—he looks for the cracks. And one of the primary ways he widens those cracks is by cultivating bitterness, which turns into division, which turns into complete separation.
Let me show you how serious God is about strife. Look at what happened in Numbers 20.
God had called Moses to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. God made this promise: "I will deliver you." But here's the critical thing: deliverance is not complete until you arrive at your destination. If you're stuck in the middle, you have not been delivered.
Think about it. If you're hungry and you order food, but you only look at the menu and confirm the order—are you fed? No. Until the food is in your bloodstream, you have not been delivered. Deliverance is a "from-to" equation. It's not just about where you came from; it's about where you're going.
So Israel was in the wilderness, and there was no water to drink. In verse 3, the people contended with Moses:
"Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? There is no grain, no figs, no vines, no pomegranates, and there is no water to drink!" (Numbers 20:4-5)
Notice something: they had one complaint—no water. But when you begin to complain, you rope every other thing into it. They added problems that weren't even the issue. That's what strife does. It magnifies every problem and makes you lose perspective.
But Moses did something right. He went to the presence of God. And God spoke to him:
"Take your rod. Assemble the congregation. Tell the rock before their eyes to give forth water." (Numbers 20:8)
But then Moses did something wrong:
"Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice. Water came out abundantly." (Numbers 20:11)
Moses acted in anger. He spoke words of frustration: "Must we bring water out of the rock for you?" He let the strife of the people affect his heart.
And God's response was severe:
"Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me before the eyes of these people, you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them." (Numbers 20:12)
Let that sink in. Strife is strong enough to keep you from what God promised you.
The people who contended with Moses—God didn't punish them. God punished Moses. Why? Because Moses knew better. He should have handled it differently. And because of strife, Moses—the great deliverer—died in the wilderness. He came out of Egypt, but he never made it to Canaan.
Most of us are stuck in the middle right now because of strife. Because we've chosen not to forgive someone. Because we've chosen to have beef with someone. God wants to make you the lead of that department, but all the enemy has to do is cause you to have issues with one coworker, and that's enough to stop your promotion. And sometimes the beef seems logical—the person really is irresponsible or disrespectful. But for your own good, so you don't stay stuck in a season you should have left ten years ago, you have to let it go.
James 3:14 tells us:
"If there is bitter jealousy and contention in your hearts, do not pride yourselves in this and be false to the truth."
Strife targets your heart. I know the person insulted you with words, but the attack was aimed at your heart. I know what they did was embarrassing—that email chain was brutal. But the real attack is on your heart. The enemy is trying to get your heart to be in a different place.
Strife is an expression of carnality. In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, Paul writes:
"I could not talk to you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh. You are still infants in Christ. For as long as there is jealousy, wrangling, and factions among you, are you not of the flesh?"
If you're living in strife, you're carnal. That doesn't mean you're not born again. It means your standards are coming from the flesh, not from the Spirit. You're taking your cue from culture. Someone does something, and you clap back. People celebrate your comeback, and suddenly you're all in on retaliation. But that same clap-back energy that people are celebrating? That's the same energy that's keeping you stuck and stagnant.
Strife creates the perfect environment for the devil. James 3:16 says:
"For wherever there is jealousy and contention, there will also be confusion, unrest, disharmony, rebellion, and all sorts of evil."
If the devil can get you into strife, he will unleash his full arsenal on you. And the beautiful part for him? He doesn't even have to come at you with everything. He just needs to get you to be in contention with someone. That's it. That opens the door for every other attack.
Strife is a thief. It steals three critical things.
First, strife steals your attention. When you're fighting with someone, you're not paying attention to what the devil is actually doing in your life. You're fighting with your spouse instead of recognizing that you're both under attack. You're beefing with a coworker instead of focusing on the enemy's strategy against your promotion. You're muted in your attack. Your defenses are lowered. And the devil is winning because now your focus is on the strife, not on what God wants to do.
Second, strife steals your affection. Whatever you pay attention to, you begin to develop feelings about. If you walk past a movie, you don't feel anything. But if you sit down for fifteen minutes and invest in the story, you develop emotional attachment. Your affection follows your attention. Your treasure, your attention, your affection—these are always going to meet. And Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Third, strife steals your association. This is the most powerful point. In Matthew 18:18-19, Jesus says:
"Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven... If two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven." (Matthew 18:18-19)
Unity is God's system for corporate dominion on the earth.
God has given you authority, but that authority is activated through unity. If you can get two or three people to come together in agreement—in harmony, in symphony—you can bind anything on earth and it will be bound in heaven.
But when strife enters, something changes. The power is still there, but it cannot be accessed. Imagine two people trying to pull something heavy together. They're both strong. But if they start arguing with each other—if one turns around to fight the other—suddenly they can't pull what they need to pull. They've lost the necessary spiritual weight. The devil doesn't even need to add opposition. He just needs to divide the people who should be standing together.
Sometimes it's a person who should be praying for you, interceding for you. But because of strife, because of beef, you've closed that channel. Your mother's prayers, your friend's prayers, the prayers of someone who's been standing in agreement for you—all of that is cut off because you chose strife.
Confusion is a spiritual strategy. In 2 Chronicles 20:22, when armies came against the king of Judah, God didn't send warriors. He sent worshippers. As they began to sing and praise God, the Bible says:
"The Lord set an ambush against the armies... and they began to fight among themselves."
Confusion. Internal division. That's how the enemy defeats you. And where does confusion come from? Where there is strife.
If you're confused right now, if there's fog around you, check your relationships. Do a relationship check. See who you have beef with. See who you haven't spoken to in a while because something started it years ago—and now you can't even remember what it was, but you remember the feeling. You just know: "I don't like them. I don't want anything to do with them."
But Jesus said:
"If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 18:23-24)
You can't even worship effectively if there's strife in your heart. God is literally saying, "Go make peace first. Take away that offense from your heart. Then come back and offer your gift."
It's not about becoming best friends with everyone who offended you. It's about taking away the offense from your heart. It's a posture of your heart. It may not even be possible to reconcile with them—they may not even be alive. But you can change your posture toward them. You can pray for them instead of holding onto bitterness.
Some people say, "It's just me and God." But isolated Christianity doesn't produce spiritual maturity. It produces bloated theologians.
Spiritual maturity is not measured by the gifts of the spirit. It's measured by how you react and how you respond. Spiritual maturity is measured by the fruit of the spirit—and you crush fruit to get the juice. What happens to you when you're crushed shows your maturity.
If your response to being stepped on, ignored, or offended is the same now as it was ten years ago, you're still as immature. I don't care how many scriptures you quote or how many people get healed when you pray for them. Maturity is not measured by gifts; it's measured by fruit.
You need people to step on you. You need people to annoy you. That's how you develop spiritual maturity. When someone does something to you and your old reaction would have been to explode or retaliate, but instead you pause and let the Holy Spirit take the wheel—that's maturity.
That's why you need community. That's why you need to join a church. That's why you need a group of people you pray with. Ecclesiastes says:
"If one falls down, a friend can help him up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up."
When you pray alone, you can only apply so much pressure to pull what God has for you. But when two or three come together in agreement, there's a different weight, a different power. The devil's strategy is to cut you short—to take away someone who should be standing in agreement with you. To cause strife so that your association is broken.
The first step is simple: let go of your ego.
In Philippians 2:3, Paul writes:
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves."
Your ego is the problem. Your need to be right. Your need to win the argument. Your need to get the last word. That's what feeds strife.
Abraham could have fought for his rights. The land was originally given to him, not Lot. He could have said, "No, you go somewhere else." But instead, he chose peace. He chose to honor relationship over possession. He chose to let Lot choose first, and then Abraham took what was left.
That's the posture you need. That's how you deal with strife.
One of our core values at The Well Church is that we love people. We love God, and we love people. Unity is not optional for us—it's essential.
If you stay engaged with us for one year—truly engaged, not just showing up on Sunday, but serving, praying, being part of community—your life will be radically changed. But here's the thing: what's going to stop us is strife. What's going to keep us from becoming everything God has for this church is division.
We're living in a time when many people have isolated themselves. The pandemic taught us how to do church online, just us and the pastor. But a church is not a building or a video feed. A church is a body. Just like your heart doesn't work by itself when it's isolated—it needs to be connected to the head, receiving direction and life—so it is in the body of Christ.
When you submit to the headship of Jesus, everything aligns. Your life changes. The things you used to be comfortable with, you're no longer comfortable with. You're put under a new demand. And that demand comes from new leadership.
Leadership determines where you go. If you want to lose weight but you're not willing to change your primary influences, you won't succeed. If you want your finances to change, you need to listen to new voices, read new books, submit to new financial principles. And if you want your spiritual life to change, you need to submit to the leadership of Jesus and connect with a community of believers who are also submitted to Him.
That's the antidote to strife. That's how you move from isolation into maturity. That's how you move from the wilderness into the promised land.
Remember: strife is strong enough to keep you from what God promised. It kept Moses from Canaan. It keeps countless believers stuck in seasons they should have left years ago.
But you don't have to live that way. You can choose, like Abraham, to let go of your ego. You can choose to pursue peace over being right. You can choose to join a community, to stand in unity with others, and to access the corporate authority God has given to His people.
The choice is yours. But the consequence of strife is clear. And the reward of unity is powerful.
Don't let strife have a home in your house—your marriage, your workplace, your friendships, your church. Deal with it. Let it go. Choose peace. Choose unity. Choose to move forward into everything God has promised you.
