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Good morning! For some of us, those words bring back memories of the famous Rodney King trials. A man, innocent of any great transgression, stood before a nation. Some inflamed by the acts of violence perpetrated upon this man, others standing behind the police who claimed justification in their altercation with him. As he peered into the camera and pondered how such a lowly, humble, troubled and homeless man could find himself as the catalyst others would use for racial hatred and anarchy, he asked this simple question. "Can't we all just get along"?

I have learned a valuable lesson since that day. I have learned the answer to the question, "can we all get along"? The answer is clearly NO! We can't. Oh, we can hope to. We can try to. But we can't all get along. We can get along with some of the people some of the time. We can get along with all of the people some of the time. But we can't get along with all of the people all of the time. No matter how hard we try, WE can't just "get along".

As long as we are living in the natural man, there will be division. The only way WE can get along, is for that which is Supernatural to reign supreme over our carnal human being.

Paul wrote to the church at Corinth "For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?"

You may say "I am not like a church member at Corinth." Well, it may be true that we are not involved in the many wicked behaviors of some of these church members, but he is only describing one wrong behavior here and that is the carnality of "walking as men".

This word "men" is a gender neutral term referring to mankind, or humans. When we as people walk (that is, take repeated steps) under the influence of the natural man, we are walking as men. That is the definition of carnality.

Paul indicates that these members are "yet carnal". That simply means they are "still" this way. They may not always be this way, but they are at times. This carnality brings envy of another, strife toward othersand division among one another. How does this happen? It happens by taking repeated steps (walking) as a man, rather than talking repeated steps (walking) after the Spirit (Galatians 5).

But how do we get to this point of carnality that "division among the brethren" inhibits our ability to get along? I believe the answer is found in this verse. It is found in the successive sins listed: envy precedes strife and strife precedes division.

Envy is "to be discontent at the sign of excellence in another". It's jealousy, pure and simple! When someones "quality of life" produces discontent in our meditations, we have taken our first step toward "walking as men".

But envy does not stop there. Envy needs to be justified by the lowering of that person's stature in our mind, thus advancing our own position. This allows us to feel better about our inadequacies and eases the pain of another's excellence. In order to do this, we begin to think wrong thoughts. At first we excuse away their excellence by finding flaw in them. We question their integrity, their motives, their authenticity or any other area that we might "create" for our meditations an allusion that they are NOT as excellent as they seem.

The second wrong thought pattern of an envious person is to excuse away their own lack of excellence. The Bible says we can do all things. I doubt that means "we can do some things good, others bad, but we can still do it all!" No! Through Christ we CAN do all things and it goes without saying that if we are doing things through Christ we will do all things well, or "excellent"! If someone is doing something better than us, we are either not submitted to God or not empowered by God to perform at that level. If it is the former, we need to confess and forsake our carnality. If it is the latter we need to accept our talents and look to Jesus for satisfaction in who we are IN Christ.

However, when we choose instead to think wrong thoughts, they eventually get out. Envy makes its way out of our heart and lands on our tongue in the second form of carnality listed: strife. Strife is the second step in our walk as men that make it impossible for us all to "just get along". Strife is "contention for superiority". Strife is not the beginning of the battle. The battle begins inside in our hearts. But at this stage it is only within. It's a battle between our soul and the spirit for superiority. We have not done battle with others quite yet. But when the soul wins the battle and the thoughts make their way out, the strife begins. A contention is forged when we "spew our stew".

The things we have allowed to stew are not being served up hot for others to enjoy. But seldom does it taste as good to others as it does to us. This battle that we wage when we begin to speak evil of another is a battle for superiority. We are now engaged in an all out effort to discount the excellence of another in our quest for personal superiority. This battle is best won by those who walk as men when they choose to sow discord among the brethren. God say's those who do sow discord are an abomination to him. Do you know what that means? It means that those who sow discord among the brethren are the "epitome of carnality"! The strife that sows discord is the seed that reaps division.

God has called us to be fruitful and multiply. We cannot multiply if we are engaged in division. Multiplication comes by using one another's value to equal a greater sum of parts (2 TIMES 2). We need both two's to cooperate in order to get to four. When they both participate in the equation, then we have successfully multiplied. We've gained two more. That's bearing fruit. We are fruitful when we multiply.

But two divided by two leaves us back at one. We've lost three people? "How?" Division! "Why?" Strife! "What for?" Envy!

Our bad mouth leads us to bad math. Try something new today. Don't say one single negative thing about someone. And if you are able to do it, then tomorrow, don't think one single negative thing about someone. Then see if those days developed or divide.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY: "Good Morning Father! I need you today to help me be content in who I am in Christ and not to look to the excellence in others as stimulation for wrong meditations. Help me, Lord to look to you and enjoy who we have become. Empower me to do right, say right by thinking right today through your Spirit of Wisdom. I pray this prayer in the blood stained name of our Lord Jesus! Amen."