Why We Can't Get Along

"When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. "  Galatians 5:19-20

This is the definite Bible list of what's wrong with human nature.  This is what sin has done to us.  A lot of what is on the list is about what you would expect:  sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, drunkenness, and wild parties.  That sounds like what you would expect from a Biblical description of sin.  But let's look at the other half of the list:  hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, and envy.

A few years ago a man in California plaintively asked a now famous question:  "Why can't we just get along?"  And this is the reason why.  Sin, by it's very nature, is divisive and quarrelsome.  This is human nature 101.  What can we learn from this?

We can be more understanding of the political process.  Go back two paragraphs and look at that list again the next time you see the battling talking heads on the TV.  There never has been and never will be a time in which the people in politics put the good of the majority above all other values.  There are exceptions, but they simply prove the rule.  If you want leaders who will be noble and enlightened you'll have to wait for the millennium.

We can be a little more thoughtful about the way we do church.  If you are the devil, and you understand that all this stuff is in human nature, you are going to constantly attack local churches by trying to get a small group of people together to get rid of the pastor.  When we get into church disputes are we really being motivated by principles or is a weakness in our nature being manipulated by evil spirits?

We can be really careful in our relationships at work and at home.  If you reread that list you might wonder if anybody could ever stay married to anyone else for a lifetime.  And you should certainly have a clearer understanding of why there is so much gossip and office politics at work.

How should we respond?  We should love everybody and forgive everybody.  We should be "the very soul of kindness."  And we should always keep a careful watch on ourselves.  There is a lot of junk inside of me.  I have to hold tight to Jesus if I am going to walk in love and be willing to forgive those who sin against me.

Blind Captivity

"The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will."  2 Timothy 2:24-26

I've been praying this passage as a prayer for a Christian woman who has abandoned and divorced her husband.  And every time I pray it seems backwards.  I would expect a knowledge of the truth to lead to repentance.  Wouldn't you?  The devil has you confused ("held captive by him to do his will").  So the Holy Spirit begins to reason with you.  He helps you to understand what you are doing is wrong and why it is wrong.  And because of this you repent.

That's not what the passage says.  The passage says that the repentance is a gift from God and the knowledge comes after the repentance.  You don't repent because you came to your senses, you come to your sense after you repent!  Does this mean that the devil can build some kind of a stronghold in my life (a "snare" that holds me "captive to do his will") that is so strong that I can't think my way out of it?  Does he bring us into a state of pure moral blindness where we simply can not see the truth any longer (at least as it applies to the sin that binds us)?


So all of a sudden, while praying for this woman, I find myself asking if I shouldn't begin to pray this for me!  In what areas of my life am I so blind, so completely given over to Satan's control, that I can't even begin to see things from a godly perspective until God Himself rescues me by giving me the gift of repentance?  Where am I acting so irrationally that I literally need God's help so that I can come to my senses?


Let us pray.