Kenneth Copeland Devotional 19 October 2024 – Don’t Let Division Stunt Your Growth
Topic: Don’t Let Division Stunt Your Growth
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions…. – 1 Corinthians 3:1-3
Envying, strife and divisions had reduced the early Corinthian Christians back to the natural, or carnal, state that they were in before they were born again. It had so stunted their spiritual growth that they couldn’t understand the things the Apostle Paul wanted to teach them.
Satan has sent the same spirit of division among us today. He knows that a house divided against itself will fall. He also knows if we all come together in the unity of our faith, we’ll arrive at the full stature of Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:13). So he has assigned a spirit of division to operate in our personal lives, our church lives, our social lives and our family lives. His goal is the same as it was in Corinth: to bring envying, strife and division, and to stunt our spiritual growth.
But we don’t have to yield to that spirit. Instead Paul says, “[by] speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).
Compare “speaking the truth in love” to “envyings, strife, and divisions.” Diametrical opposites, aren’t they? You can’t do both of them at the same time. As you speak the truth in love, you grow up. As you envy, fuss and separate from one another, you go back to babyhood.
Don’t let Satan stop your spiritual growth by giving in to the spirit of division but speak the truth in love and “grow up into Him in all things!”
Scripture Reading: James 4:1-11
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 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. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”[c]
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[d] or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
This message was written by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, the leader of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries that specializes in teaching principles of bible faith – prayer, healing, salvation and other biblical topics.
