Daily Devotionals

The most hazardous weapon the devil uses against us is a foremost enemy of love. The weapon: strife.

Strife means “vigorous or bitter conflict, discord and antagonism; to quarrel, struggle or clash; competition; rivalry.” Strife is of the devil. It is an open door to the devil. It licenses him to bring confusion and evil into your life. That’s why he’s always pushing for us to argue with one another and get offended or critical of one another. It gives him access to us!

You see, when you were born again, the Bible says you were delivered out of the control and the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s Son (Colossians 1:13). At that time, the devil lost his right of lordship over you and you received salvation.

Salvation doesn’t just include the new birth, it includes all the blessings of God. Peace, healing, well-being, finances and provision for every area of your life belong to you the moment you become a child of God.

But Satan doesn’t want you to enjoy those blessings. He doesn’t want you to be healed, happy and prosperous, because if you are, other people will notice and want the same quality of life you have. They’ll give their hearts to God because of the goodness of God they see in your life.

In order to stop that from happening, the devil tries to steal those blessings from you. But since he has no authority over you anymore, to successfully do that, he has to trick you into opening the door of your life to him. So what does he do? He tries to get you into strife. He brings you an opportunity to have a conflict with someone because he knows that the moment you step into strife, he can begin to gain the mastery over you.

I remember when Ken and I first received that revelation years ago. We realized that if we wanted to walk in the full blessing of God, we would have to stay out of strife. We wouldn’t be able to argue with people. We wouldn’t be able to fight back when people criticized us or wronged us. We’d have to respond in love.

So we made up our minds to put strife out of our family. We kept it out of our ministry. When we did mess up and exchange harsh words, we determined we had to be quick to repent or the devil would have a foothold in our lives.

You do the same thing. Don’t open the door to the devil in your life. Shut it! Put strife out of your life. Put it out of your family. Put it out of your church. When you do, you’ll enjoy the blessings of God like never before!

Exodus 33-34; Luke 1 I refuse to allow envy and strife into my heart. I refuse to give the devil a license to bring confusion and every evil work into my life.

James 3:16