Taking ACTION Against STRIFE, "PART 2, THE DANGERS OF STRIFE" | DR MIKE WOODS, SR. | 1-12-24

Well, praise the Lord, and grace and peace be multiplied to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I pray, uh, everybody's had a great week, you've had a great Saturday. Listen, I want to share this word because I believe it just can't wait. I was going to teach this tomorrow, but it's just been urgent on my heart since I got up this morning and since actually I stopped teaching on Thursday night. So this is going to be tonight part 2 of Exposing Strife, taking action against strife. Can I tell you something? One of the greatest enemies to blessing, to the release of heaven superimposing itself upon your life and you seeing the manifested results of heaven moving through and in you is allowing strife in your life. And so as we take action this year, 2024, we define this as the year action. One of the first things off the rip I want you to do is identify every place of strife, every person that brings strife, every situation, every culture that causes strife. And listen, you're going to have to dismiss them so you can get to moving forward in the things of God. Listen, you cannot perform the purpose of God alone. You need God to do what you got to do, right? So I want you to go ahead, guys, and share this tonight. I promise you, as you share it, are you going to be blessed for doing so? The Bible says we're blessed to be a blessing, so Right now, guys, take a moment, uh, send out a text, uh, do whatever you need to do. I need you to share this live stream with someone tonight. Listen, someone needs this blessing, someone needs to break through, someone needs the deliverance and the victory that God wants to bring to their life. So please share this. Um, I'm telling you right now, this is a message that's going to be life-changing if you apply the principles that are going to be released. So let's jump into this tonight. Again, we're going to pray. Go ahead and share it, uh, glory to God. Send it to somebody's inbox, text someone. Again, tag people below. Let's get this message into the hands of every person we can think of, because I promise you, there's not very many people on this planet that don't deal with strife, and then there's not very many people that realize how dangerous it is Yeah, to keep accommodating strife and allowing it into your life and into your world. So, uh, let's jump into this, man, tonight after we pray, and we're gonna, we're gonna hear what God has to say. Let's pray. Father, in Jesus' name, we thank you for your goodness, your mercy, your grace. I praise you for the light, the illumination, and the intelligence of the Holy Spirit tonight. God, do something in me, through me, that man cannot do. Oh God, move Michael Woods out the way. Hide me behind the cross. Allow no flesh to be on parade, no carnality to be seen. But God, as we disseminate and release this word, may it be a blessing to every person that will open their ears and hear. In the mighty name of Jesus we do pray. Amen. And thanks be to God. Hallelujah. All right guys, I love you, and we're gonna jump right into this. So Thursday We left off talking about how important really, uh, unity and harmony is. So if you miss Thursday night's teaching, make sure you go back on my timeline, or whether you're on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, wherever, and watch, uh, part 1 of Taking Action Against Strife, because I talk about really heavily how important it is for us to endeavor, as the scripture commands us, to keep the unity of the faith and the bond of peace. We got to be unified in God, in our faith. We got to be unified with each other. And we talked about too how when people carry either the spirit of peace or the spirit of strife, because they both are spirits, it can be felt. So you can feel strife when it walks in the room. You can feel peace when it walks in the room. And God, he wants us— hear me— to walk in peace and dismiss strife from our lives. So make sure you go back. We exposed again, uh, the spirit of strife by letting you know what it is. We gave you a good working definition, so please go back and watch. But tonight I want to get into the dangers of strife. Amen. So let's go to 1 Corinthians really quick. 1 Corinthians chapter number 1, and I'm going to begin reading at verse number 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 9. You'll find these words. The Bible says God is faithful. All right, come on. So, so type that in the comments. Come on, somebody needs to see that. Somebody needs to receive that tonight. God is faithful. I'm gonna just stop right here. God is faithful. When other people are not, when people leave, when people walk away, you gotta learn to understand that One, everybody's not supposed to be with you always. And if people do leave, it's a sign, it's an indication they were not supposed to walk with you anyway. Now, there's some that leave in error, but at the end of the day, it's still their own error. Glory to God. And hopefully in time they'll come back and determine that they need to be with you. But can I tell you something? In spite of who leaves, in spite of the divorce, in spite of the separation— I know I'm talking to you tonight, but somebody's separated, somebody's divorced. Uh, in spite of the, the division you experience, maybe in your ministry or in your home— glory to the name of God— in your business, in your workplace, in spite of all of that, I want you to know something: God is faithful. Pistos, not pistos. Pistos, which means he can be trusted. The Greek word for faithful there is pistos, P-I-S-T-O-S, which means not pistis, But pistos, pistis, P-I-S-T-I-S, is faith. But so to be faithful is pistos, which means that you can be trusted, or here, God can be trusted. So here's what I need you to do from the beginning, guys. You can't approach God like you deal with people. God has no onus against you. Um, God loves you. Right? He's not looking to kill you. He's not looking to stop you. As a matter of fact, the Father's desire— hear me— is to see you win. I'm going to say that again because that's just so true. It's just so right. The Father's desire— listen to me, guys— is to see you win. God is faithful. Oh my goodness. Type into the comments, please, God is Faithful. He'll never leave you. He'll never forsake you. He'll be with you now until the end of the age. He's committed to you. He's 100% invested in your success. He's a hun— God is a hun— If others don't want to see you win, hear me, God is 100% invested in you. Yes, you. Winning. Good God Almighty. Oh wee, oh wee, oh wee, oh wee, oh wee. He's 100% invested in you winning, period, point blank, period, end of story. He's 100% invested in you winning. I need y'all to hear that. All right, so If you're not winning, if things are not working, it's not that God is not faithful. Maybe you need to check where there's some lack of faithfulness on your part. Or watch this, what if there's strife? Let me keep reading. Glory to God. Again, 1 Corinthians 1:9, but God is faithful by whom ye are called unto the fellowship. Of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. So wait a minute, the scripture is not saying God called us to religion, to legalism. The Bible says here that God called us to fellowship, koinonia in Greek, which is partnership, communion, communication. Watch this, joint participation in kingdom affairs. Oh, so God has called me to have joint participation in kingdom affairs. So if I'm born again, if I'm saved, God is faithful that he has called me— kletos in Greek— authentically, individually. You and I, there's a unique, authentic kletos calling for you and I to fellowship, to partnership with Jesus for the advancement of kingdom affairs. So this means you should not just be connecting with people just to be connecting with them. You should be connecting with people for the advancement of kingdom affairs. Some of you connected with people for the wrong reason, to see what you could get. You— oh my God, you're connected to see— oh, glory to the name of God— if they're going to mess up. Wrong. You should be connected for the advancement of kingdom affairs? What is your agenda? What is your motive? We, we are connected to God not for religious purposes. Listen, let me submit this to you right here. You can go to church and not have fellowship. Hear me, hear me, guys, hear me good. You can go to the church— my Georgia dialect just came out real good there— and not have fellowship and not have koinonia. You could be a member of the church— of a church and be connected with people serving on ministries, but the goal of that church is not the advancement of kingdom affairs. And I'm telling you right now, you're probably in the wrong place because that's not what God is calling for— religion and legalism. He's calling for the advancement of kingdom affairs, kingdom agendas, where the people inside the church leave the church, show up in the world, and take over the world in their fear of influence. Yeah, real fellowship. Y'all ain't liking me tonight. Y'all don't like me. It's okay, I'm— it's okay. I prayed before I sat down in the studio today because you gotta understand that you gotta get this. See, 2024 can only be different when you take action against misalignment, misfellowship, because misfellowship, misalignment, bad covenants, uh-oh, cause strife, tension, frustration, bickering. You're frustrating your spirit because you're in the wrong place. Every assignment has geography. It has a place. It has a place. There's somewhere you should be for the fulfillment of their assignment. Some of you think you're so smart you could do it alone and you don't need connectivity with God. You've been called to passionate fellowship with Jesus Christ. This is why you got ignorant people out here saying that Jesus doesn't exist and there's no power in the name of Jesus, and because they don't know him, they don't have fellowship. They're caught up in religion. Religion will keep you blocked from the kingdom agenda every single time. Let me keep reading. I'm staying on these too long. I'm supposed to just be reading. Verse 10, it says, now I beseech you, I beg you, brethren, Adolphos, those that are connected to me, those of you that say you're saved. Adolphos in Greek means brethren, those that are part of the faith, those that are involved in the kingdom agenda. He said, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul says, I'm not coming in my name. Everything I'm doing, I'm doing it to the glory of God. I'm coming in the identity of Jesus. Watch this. That you all speak the same thing, and that there be no division among you, that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. He said, I want no schisma, no division, no gaps between you, no dissension where one is looking down on the other. Every person is important, no matter where you serve. Hear me, every person is important. No matter where you serve, no matter what you do, every single one of you are important. So God says when we come in the identity of Jesus, there are no big I's, there's no little you's. You just may have a different title, position, place of authority, but every single person has a 100% bought-in level of importance to the plan of God. Nobody is, oh my God, remiss. Nobody is second natured. Everybody's important. He said we gotta speak the same thing though. We gotta all talk kingdom. We gotta all talk the things of God. We gotta all decide that it's God's way or no way. Oh boy, I got to go, y'all. I got to get out of here, man. I'm already too long. I'm already too long. Verse 11 says, what happened? Declared unto me of you, my brethren, then, which are in the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. So the Apostle Paul says, I've heard from those you did in the house of Chloe. Well, Chloe was the leader. Watch this, uh, Chloe's name— glory to name— means a green herb in Greek. Chloe, a green herb which is healing and purity. So Chloe's house was a house of cleansing and purity where those that assembled there to worship God, many were delivered, many were healed, many were set free. Watch this. But there was strife, there was contention, there was divisions. And because there was contention and divisions— hear me— the move of God was blocked, the move of God was hindered, the move of God was challenged. Oh my God, today! Oh my goodness, I gotta go! So God He's basically saying in these 3 verses, I want to bless you, I want to bless your assignment, I want to bless the works of your hands, but you must get along. Oh, hear me. He said, God says, I want to bless you, body, not just individuals. I'm pulling into this camera close so you can see my face. But I want to make sure you can get along so that the blessing can be corporate, it could be shared, so we could be blessed together, we could be healed together, we could be delivered together. We're better together. Go to Psalm 133. Glory to God. Psalm 133, verses 1, 2, and 3. Let's go, let's go. Psalm 133, verses 1, 2, and 3. Let's go. Praise God. We love you, Jesus. We thank you for your word tonight, God. We give praise. We thank you for the intelligence of the Spirit of the Living God tonight. Yes, we do. Glory to God. And we thank you that as we teach, those that listen are being blessed. They're being made whole. They're being healed. They're being delivered. They're receiving breakthroughs. They're being set free. Glory to God. Hallelujah. We thank you that even as we teach unity, hallelujah, and harmony to your purpose, to your plan, to your will is taking place. Even as we teach, houses that are divided, churches that are divided that are being divided, leaders that are divided, nations that are divided, as we teach. We declare, God, oh, that unity and harmony is happening even now. Psalm 133, verses 1, 2, and 3. This is a song of degrees from David. And a song of degrees was simply a ma'alah in Hebrew, which is what that is. It means a psalm, that comes out of deep thought and meditation. So these songs, these writings were not just haphazardly written, but the, glory to God, the ma'alah, the ma'alah, the deep thought and meditation on God and his ways were the birthplace of these songs. So watch this, the Bible says in verse 1, behold, How good and pleasant is it for the brethren to dwell together in unity. Well, let's look at those two words. Good, tov, tov in Hebrew, and it means, uh, it's agreeable, uh, it is, oh my God, profitable. So God says it is agreeable/profitable for us to be in unity. For us to walk in oneness, for us to be in harmony, for you to be in harmony and oneness with God pertaining to the things that pertain to your life. Oh, he says, and pleasant, naim in Hebrew, which means it is sweet, it is delightful. Oh God, God says, I take delight because you delight in unifying. You delight, glory to God, in being one with my purpose. You delight in following my plan. You delight in doing what I ask you to do. Glory to God. He said it's so— it's profitable, delightful, agreeable for us, you and I, the body of Christ, to be unified, to be harmonious in our existence. The kingdom cannot be effectively advanced where there is division. Division from what, you say, Michael Woods? Division from the king's plan. If your vision is different than what the king has required, you're operating in division. Di means two, vision, which means there's two visions. In the kingdom, there cannot be two visions. Everything you do, everything you say must align with the vision of the king. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Verse 2, he said, it is like precious ointment— wait a minute, wait a minute— upon the head, then ran down the beard, even Aaron's beard, and went down the skirts of his garments. Verse 3, and as the dew of Hermon, and oh, and as the dew descended upon the mountains of Zion, for the Lord has commanded the blessing, even life evermore. Wait a minute. So what, what them two verses tell me basically, where there's unity, there's three things. One, there's blessing. So he says the blessing, which means the resources, or here the baraka, the adoration, the prosperity of heaven, which means the king and all his resources that moved in now become accessible and available to you because the blessing and the prosperity of heaven, the Baraka, the Baraka, God starts to adore the alignment and the unison you have with him, the unison you have with others. And he says, I got to bless them because their agenda is about me. But the moment this thing becomes selfish and about you, you're on your own. Things are hard and you don't have the advantage of living in the blessing. I taught a lesson last year, gotta get your mind right this year. I'm telling you that the blessing means to cultivate, baraka, to grow rich, to become wealthy. Watch this, with the help and assistance of God, your King. Someone said, well, Woods, something's wrong. Everybody can't be rich. The poor, you have what you're always— true, that's the word. But it— the poor doesn't have to be you. I just need you to know that you can be rich if you want to. You must align yourself with God's vision, with God's blessing, and let him cultivate his dream, his idea. As long as you're doing your thing, it's going to be hard. The moment I surrender to do what God asked me to do, major doors open, major blessing begin to happen in my life. The moment it ceased being about Michael, the blessing poured in. See, some of you are struggling, you're stressed out over stuff, you're worried about stuff because you're walking without the blessing. Your faith is in you. Okay, I don't have time, I don't have time. So, so basically he said again where there's unity with his purpose, with his plan, with others that you're supposed to be aligned with, he says there's blessing. Also, there's anointing. See, the oil flows from the head down. So when I'm aligned with the head, the king, then I align myself in authority with the under-shepherd, his leaders that he's assigned me to. So it means I got to be aligned with the vision of my king, the vision of my spiritual father. Oh my God. And that anointing flows from the head down. You have to do the same. Ain't enough for you to run around calling people father, dad, all this crap, and you ain't aligned with them. You calling them father, you calling them dad, but you move in disobedience. And I know there's some ignorance floating around saying there's no need for spiritual fathers. That's crazy. The Bible says Children, obey your parents in the Lord. What are parents? A mother and a father. The Bible says you have many teachers, but you have not many fathers, and he's returning the heart of the fathers back to children. So for those of you that says there's no need for spiritual fathers, read your Bible. And so what you got to do is come in alignment so you can be anointed, whoo, to do what you got to do in the kingdom. Oh my God, because you're in line with the king and the father, the spiritual parents he put in your life, then the blessing comes. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So where there's unity, there's blessings, there's anointing. Wait a minute, Michael. Wait a minute, Michael. He also says there's life forevermore. So there's eternal life. So I'm, I'm, I'm convinced, man, that when I align with the King and his will, his plan, I align with authority, I unify with God and everybody I'm supposed to unify with, it'll eliminate strife— watch this— and stress and strife and drama from people, won't kill me prematurely. I'll live a long life on earth. I'll finish my course with joy. I'll finish with joy. I won't die sick, I won't die beat up, but I'll finish my course with joy. And then I'll slip into eternity and live out the rest of my kingdom assignment in the kingdom of God. Oh boy, y'all ain't ready. Y'all, y'all not ready. Okay, y'all ain't ready. Okay, y'all want a mega popular preacher that ain't telling you nothing. I'm trying to give you some soul food. Hear it, listen to it. Glory to God. I'm not concerned about being popular. I'm not concerned about you liking me. I want you to get this, eat it, and change your life. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Think about this. We see this with Abraham and Lot. Go to Genesis 13. Yeah, yeah, God, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you, Father. Yeah, Jesus, I hear you. Genesis 13. Almost finished, guys. I'm almost through. Genesis 13:7. Somebody type these scriptures in the comments. The Bible said there was strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle. And the Canaanite, the Perizzite, dwelled then in the land. So wait a minute, God gave Abram a specific command. He said, get from among your kindred, get into a land you know not of. Here's the backstory. Abram introduced the strife when he disobeyed that command. He didn't obey fully. Watch this. Partial obedience is disobedience. He decided to take Lot, who was his cousin. He was supposed to leave Lot behind. He said, no kindred, get into— see, some of us are trying to take people that can't go. Some family people can't go, unfortunately. Some people you like a whole lot that are good friends, they can't go. You have to leave them because here's what happens when you take them. The Bible said they got into the land. God began to bless both Abram and Lot. Lot prospered because he was with Abram. But here's what happened in verse 7. Strife rose up. The blessing was cut off. Hmm. God said to Abram, listen, here's what I need you to do. I need you— listen to me, guys. Oh boy. I need you— listen— phew, phew, phew— to separate yourself, Abram, from Lot, because there's more I want to show you. There's more I want to do. There's more blessing than you've ever seen. But as long as Lot is with you, you won't get it. You won't receive it. You won't have it. My God, my God, this is not a good place, people. This is not a good place. It's not a good place. It's not a good place. Here's what God says. Here's what God says. Listen. You gotta find all the lots in your life, people that you've latched on to, that have latched on to you. Maybe they're the key. They're causing strife. Maybe they have the key that's stopping the blessing. You need to release them so that the blessing— so you can accumulate, grow rich, become wealthy, so you can impact the world, dominate the world, advance the kingdom of God. You need to get the lots out of your life this year. 2024, you need to declare no more lots, no more lots. Watch this. The Bible said when Abram separated himself from Lot, same chapter, Genesis 13, he lifted up his eyes and he looked, and as far as he could see to the north, the south, and the east and the west, the Lord told him, whatever you see, I'm gonna give you. Your vision increases, your direction becomes clear. When you get the strife out of your life and people that bring it. Oh my God, today. Oh my God, today. I remember, uh, a prophecy was released concerning a particular Bible college, glory to God, that had a lot of strife, man. The prophecy went forth, you know, Lord speaks, and a lot of times Now these words are released, and I be knowing stuff from God, and I'm like, I just want people to receive what God say. I've been prophesying, man, for 34 years, and, uh, this particular prophecy, when it went forth— hear me, guys— I had no, no idea what was going on in this particular church, this particular school, but there was a lot of strife in the Bible school. They were warned to get the strife out. Or the school would be destroyed because the strife was creating an atmosphere for the students, young Bible students that needed a good example, that they didn't need. They didn't need that learning the Bible. It was too much going on in faculty, too much going on, and it was passing down to the students, fights, all kind of stuff. Well, they didn't heed the warning. They continued in strife. Uh, A year later, the school was burned down by a fire. What am I saying to you? I'm warning you tonight prophetically: get the strife out of your life. Almost done. Hallelujah. Listen, maybe you could look into your house. I've seen this so many times. Wife you know, appears to be very spiritual. Now I've seen it, man. Sit down with couples, wife appears to be spiritual, deep, wonderful, know the scripture, pray, but there's no blessings on the household. The house is struggling, the house is in strain. Husband loses a job, many disasters. What's the problem? Wife admits she's full of strife. And prior to this, God warned again, but she would not yield herself and be free. And so strife destroyed the blessing of the Lord. But watch this, once deliverance came, God began to restore. The blessing began to overtake the home. I'm saying to you, get— this is how dangerous strife is— get the strife out of your life. Let me show you Proverbs 17. Let's go here. I'm almost done, y'all. I'm almost through. Yeah, almost through, guys. Almost through. Almost through. 17:1 says, better— the Bible says, better is a dry marshal and quietness than a house full of sacrifices with strife. The Bible said better is a dry house that's quiet, no yelling, no fire as y'all call it. Fire really consumes, fire really transforms. When the fire shows up, you know, people get changed for real. It's not that we just said it, but people get changed for real, right? Our God is a consuming fire, so when he shows up, he consumes things that's not like him. But you can have all of that because the Bible said better is a dry marshall and quietness than a praise break. Hear me, with all the noise, Hammond B3 and drums going, man. Listen to me, Bible says better is a dry morsel in quietness than a house with all that noise, all that yelling, all of that stuff, than a house full of sacrifices with strife. Listen, a house full of sacrifices with strife, it's not pleasing to the Lord. You have people giving abundance of money, a lot of dancing, a lot of praise, great worship until we cry, we're in the floor. But if we get up off the floor in strife, God is not pleased. If we stop bucking and shouting, God is not— I'm not against any of that, we do all of that. Yeah, I'm classical Pentecostal by nature, so I'm loud. But at the end of the day, all of that stuff without the benefit of peace and unity and harmony, it means nothing. You could be prophesying, and if you don't have unity, love, and harmony, the Bible say you are sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. It profits you nothing. I'm just trying to tell you, strife is dangerous. Get your house in order. I'm done. I'm going to quit here. Glory to God tonight, because I just feel led to pray, and I want to release the blessing of the Lord over your life, that you'll be bold enough to eliminate the Lots and eliminate the strife from your life. Let's pray. Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you for this word tonight, and I decree and declare that every person under the sound of my voice, whether live or by replay, I declare tonight, God, that their life will never be the same. And I decree and declare that Lot must leave. Matter of fact, we renounce Lot, we denounce strife. We will not— we renounce disobedient decisions. We renounce carnality and carnal decisions. And we declare that we are delivered, we are liberated from every bad decision that misaligned us with your vision, your plan. I'm praying tonight that the vision of God will be priority. It will be a forefront thing in the life of this people. And we praise you for it now, that we will align with you I pray, God, that you will open the heart and mind of those that's listening to receive spiritual authority, that they will align first with you as their God, as their King, and that their vision will be in alignment with you. And then that they will align with godly authority— fathers, parents in the Lord, mothers— that will lead them in the right way. And we give you praise and glory for it now, in Jesus' name. Thank you, Lord. Amen. And thanks be to God. Hallelujah. Listen, I love you guys. Thank you for tuning in. Listen, I want to challenge you again. Share this. Be a blessing to someone. Listen, it's always good to be a blessing. And I just want to challenge you right here. If this word has blessed you, be a support to ministry as we continue to advance the kingdom. We can't do it without your support. I'm appreciative for all the help, all the support, all the partners and members of Rhoda Family of Churches gave us last year. You guys are tremendous, you're a blessing, and I want us to keep that going. This year in the first quarter, it is our goal to secure a facility for Rhoda Church Atlanta, and as you sow, as you give, you're going to help us move into that ministry. Oh my God, and that building, and we'll be able to do the things that God has called us to to do without hindrance, without hesitation. So get your seed in the ground. The ways to give are on this— on the screen. We thank you for your gifts, and we praise you for who you are in the kingdom. Thank you so much. I love you guys. Y'all be blessed. Heaven smile upon you is my prayer. Peace.