I Corinthians 3 (Paul says)
2 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.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
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At the prayer group I attended when I was a new Christian, God would often give me a word of knowledge and I would share that with that group.
One day the leader of the group said: "God is no respecter of persons. If HE will give Joan Boney that word, HE will give me that word."
I believe this woman showed herself to be carnal.
It doesn't matter who is given a word from God. What we delight in is getting to hear that word.
We glory in the word not in the person who receives the word.
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I Corinthians 3
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
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Envy, strife, divisions in the body of Christ are evil.
So if any has in his heart these things, pray that you many be cleansed and made right by God.
We must not live as the world lives, competing in our hearts against one another or trying to out do one another. We delight in the Word of God and joy in hearing when someone among us has a word from God.
Once a church woman said to me: "How can I compete with a person who has been taken into heaven twice? (Meaning me) Later when I mentioned what she had said, she said she didn't say that. It seems that sometimes a person gives himself over for devils to use his mouth and then they don't even know they have spoken something evil.
When envy and strive and divisions hides in our heart, it shows one way or the other.
Repent and pray for God to give you a new heart and a new spirit if you recognize this in your heart.
I know when I receive an email from one in the church, I rush to open it to see what God has revealed to that person and I marvel in that which God shares through that person.
Certainly there are times they speak and really are just trying to say something and I know that and their word has no power. (They will receive for that when their work is evil that comes through them.)
I Corinthians 3
14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Examine your heart to see what is really in your heart.
If true joy, let joy come forth.
But if you are pretending to rejoice, repent.
A few days ago, I wrote something and a woman said: "Amen" and I recognized this as truly coming from her heart on the matter at hand and her word which was pure caused joy in me. She truly meant, "Let it be so."
Thus when it is a true and pure reaction from our heart one to another we will be blessed by God.
If it is feigned, pretended trying to make oneself be something, that person will suffer loss in heaven.
Keep your heart pure and true!
Be good and good will come forth from you.
If an evil heart is lurking or a grain of resentment has been stored in our heart, then evil will come from our heart.
If we are good, good will surface from us.
James 3:14-16 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
Jesus says:
Matthew 12:33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
When I sense evil lurking in my heart, I usually pray:
Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
"Forgive me God."
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