Kill it, already

Doug Wilson, on playing well with others

"When we are not getting along with others, the pressing temptation is always to believe that you are just as you have always been, and that they have somehow changed. This is often not true at all, but even if it were true, that does not put you in the right. Perhaps they have changed in that they have decided to stop putting up with your rudeness.

"But "getting along" is not the oil of insincerity to make the social machinery run more smoothly. The Scriptures describe fellowship as a work of the Holy Spirit. This is a God-given thing, and a work wrought in us by His grace....

"John Owen once said that a man should not think he makes any progress in godliness if he is not daily walking over the "bellies of his lusts." The thing that thwarts all fleshly ambition, spiritual pride, and grasping competition is the cross of Jesus--His death on the cross is what puts to death every form of egoistic striving--and egoistic striving is what prevents us from loving one another. The Holy Spirit does not just come along and fill you with benevolent thoughts. He is a Person, not a shot of joy juice. And the Holy Spirit is the one who applies the death of Jesus to the areas of your life that need mortifying.

"It turns out that in order for you get along with others, something has to die."