Conflict with others makes it hard to quench the thirst Christ has for souls. 

John 4:9

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click for a description of the image of the beast.

“Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” John 4:9

Jews and the Samaritans were like cats and dogs with each other, even though they shared the same heritage. Samaritans were actually descendants of the Jewish people, but sometime in the heritage of the Israelites there arose infighting. As a result, the Samaritans were cut off and deemed to be unclean and lowered to the same level as a Gentile. That plagued the Samaritans even in the day of Jesus as the Pharisees carried on the tradition of ex-communicating the Samaritans. Jesus Christ came to change that by actually asking for something from an unclean sinner.

As unclean sinners, there is something that Jesus Christ asks of us, but why would the Son of God, the Messiah of humanity, have a need to ask anything of us? Because Jesus Christ thirsts for the Salvation of souls, and He asks us to quench His thirst by coming to Him to be reconciled to God by the remission of sin. Living for the Lord Jesus Christ is a choice we must be willing to make, unlike the thing which coerces its will on us by making us conform to the thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors imposed upon us.

Conflict between others is what hardens the human spirit against receiving the Spirit of Jesus Christ. As a person becomes hardened, cold, and bickers with each other then it makes people less receptive to the Holy Spirit and more receptive to the thing which forms what we think, feel, say and do. Some people blasphemously say it is “iron sharpening iron” but all it does is enable the image of the beast to speak and live through a person. As the Holy Spirit says to us, “…for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?” 1 Corinthians 3:3 Habitual and normalized abrasions with others is against God, against Jesus Christ, and against the Holy Spirit. The end result is that people are being conformed to the anti-Christian global culture as they are groomed to the mark of the beast by what they say and do.

Do your friends despise, forsake you?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms he’ll take and shield you;
you will find a solace there.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer!
(Church Hymn)

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….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’
‘I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.’
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:11