Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking him to meet you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
Sometime later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.” So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.” Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazarite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man”.
– Judges 16:4-6, 15-17
Devotion
Samson revealing to Delilah the secret of his great strength would be his downfall. The Philistines would seize Samson, gouge out his eyes and bind him with bronze shackles and make him grind grain in their prison. A very sad ending for someone with so much potential! Samson is a picture of God’s people, spiritually blind and enslaved to cruel oppressors. It is important to remember that both Samson and God’s people had an alternative choice. In the same way, every day we choose whether or not we will worship and serve the one true God or allow ourselves to be enslaved to the sinful nature that resides within us. Each day the choice is ours to make.
The Big Question
What choice will you make today? We have been liberated from the power of the sinful nature through Christ. We have been set free from the power of sin! Will you choose to live in the reality of this new paradigm?
Conclude in prayer and silence reflecting on what you’ve learned.