The Spirit of Contention .....(anger and disagreement)

The Spirit of Contention .....(anger and disagreement)

Psalm 119:165 Great peace have they which love the law of the Lord and that  nothing shall offend them”. 

Titus 3:9 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. 

 

The Bible says..."Great peace have they which love the law of the Lord and that  nothing shall offend them”. 

When the spirit of contention is manifesting, or in a more practical way, when there is contention in the air....it does not matter whether you talk or not.....and it does not matter what you say or how you said it. 

If you talk....then that becomes the subject of the contention...in the sense of not just what you said but especially...how you said it....

If you do not talk...then it becomes don’t tell me you have nothing to say about this or that.  

So how do you deal with the issue of contention? 

How do you resist the spirit of contention?

 

Psalm 119:165 (KJV) says “Great peace have they which love Thy law: and nothing shall offend them”.

 

Offence causes people to stumble. Consider how great the peace Jesus had at the time of His crucifixion...to the extent that whatever they did or said to Him...or how they said it or did it....did not stir up offense in Him. 

In the midst of it....He said Father forgive them…

Does this kind of response come out of an offended heart or mind?

How do you respond to what people say to you? 

Do you get offended and justify it by saying that you are offended because you do not like how they said it? 

This does not mean that it is okay for people to talk in nasty ways to others but we cannot really control how people talk to us.

Day in and day out we are being constantly subjected to these in various mixes. Jesus went through them all until He got to the cross where all of them came on Him.  

Sometimes people may talk to us in ways we consider as rude...often not intentional...but because of pressures of life. 

We must understand in Psalm 119:165 not to get offended but to walk in such a great peace.....that NOTHING offends us.  

It is like choosing to forgive no matter what people do to us. 

Shake your religion for a second. 

Jesus said in Mathew 5:44 to love your enemies.

So what does that mean??

The purpose of your enemies is to learn to love better.

**Another Lesson from The Lord's Prayer**

When we asked forgiveness from God it was for our own good....same thing when we need to forgive others..it's for our own good. 

We can't be healed, never really move toward wholeness, we will never really get on with our lives until we are able to let go of the resentment, until we can give up gaining revenge...and forgive. 

When we have been wronged, we need to look at who God is and what God has done for us. 

How far am I to go with this forgiveness ?.......

How far has God gone with you?.............

We are to forgive them. Not because of who they are or what they have done; but because of who God is, and what God has graciously done.

Take a look at Matthew 6, verse 12. Right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer is a prayer that you and I, if we are not careful, just pray as a motion when we say the Lord's Prayer. ***Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors***.

We are asking God to treat us, to forgive us, exactly the way that we deal with other folks who have wronged us. 

Father, please forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. In Jesus name. Amen.

After all the Bible says that we should grow in grace 2 Peter 3:18 

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. 

The less you are offended by things that are thrown at you....the more you are lining up with The Word in Psalms 119. 

By the time you have grown in grace to the point where nothing offends you....then you have lined up with the word of God.

We should grow in the grace of not becoming offended...by growing in great peace.  

We can choose not to get offended....no matter how people talk to us....just like we choose to forgive no matter the offense. 

We should take responsibility to deal with our own response to the things we face in life....because you do not have the means to control them all.

Contention must be avoided as it will generate more contention. 

It produces loss of spiritual energy. 

Contention and offense go together and they create strife. “Great peace have they which love Thy law: and nothing shall offend them”. 

This tells us that the biblical answer to offense is to have great peace....and this great peace comes from loving the law of the Lord.