Day 16 who knows you?

We see as mentioned earlier about the general wearing down that we suffer as part of the attack, we saw it in verse 5 when the enemy pushed Delilah "by what means we may prevail" then from verses 6 - 16 we see that Delilah presses him not stop to tell her his weakness the way for the enemy to beat him. ( Look the verse up) It is verse 16 the is of particular interest though:16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. She "pressed him daily" and at the final point he was weaker, so much that his soul was "near death" and then she accuses him. In verse 15 " How can you say you love me" Accusation and Temptation We see in this theme of Samson the marriage of Sin, and how quite often we see there is more in the attack. Today we see accusation, how horrible is that, we have all been on the end of accusation. Sadly, the thing that marries up with accusation is temptation and we see that in the verses here. The moment he is accused of not loving her and he is mocking and making fun of her, he then is tempted to tell her the truth. We actually see this marriage again in Luke 4 in the temptaion of Jesus in the desert. Satan accuses Jesus of not being of God and then tempts him to turn the rock into bread. Accusation and temptation. Now when you are feeling bad, check yourself, are you being accused of something? Are you now under attack and being tempted? So how do we help in this? Encouragement: Encouragement of doing something right . This is the best way to attack and fight back against the attack of accusation and temptation. Christian or not, how often do you see a smile come on to people's faces when you encourage them and say something nice to them. You often here that if you say good morning or smile at someone first thing in the morning that they continue to smile or are polite to others throughout the day. Spreading the love. At what cost was it to you that you encouraged someone, saying something nice doesn't cost you a thing, and you never know that you saying a word of encouragement might tip the internal war and fight that the person is going through. So ending on verse 17 and 1817 So he told her everything. "No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite 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." 18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything." So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.So he told her everything. Why? Was it because he was weak and worn down. Realistically probably not, but what he really wants is to have that allie, the person to rely on when he is under attack. He did it because he wants to be known and really known by one person the person that he actually now thinks he can trust. Especially in times of distress. Truth and allies We know that this act will lead to him being arrested and then to his death. This act of him telling her everything cost him everything. But you see that she saw a change in him enough to realise that he was telling the truth you read "Delilah saw that he had told her all of his heart" She saw a change on him, so much that she knew when she didn't before. He has finally told the truth and now has the feeling of peace, this is a visible change within him. This change of telling the truth, telling everything made him feel he had allies, this brought him peace and shows realistically the strength of encouragement that you can have when you have people who you are accountable to, people who you can stand next to and stand strong in the fight against people. So who really knows you?

Day 15 fighting a war

How often do you feel stupid because you were tempted? Are we not all better than being tempted by the easy, little things? Is that not why we all pray to God to protect us with His Armor? So how stupid are we?! Well we're not are we: We all have a chink in our armour that makes us vulnerable, what is yours? Spiritual warfare is not a phrase and saying that you just expect to hear in church, or the fact that you have broken down that day in the car. How many times do you hear people say "My car just didn't start when I tried to go to work this morning, and then when I did get it started, I had a flat tyre - I am clearly being attacked by the enemy and trying to be broken" in reality what the person isn't telling you is that they havn't put any petrol in their car and had to top it up, and had been driving to closely to curbs when trying to park and have warn down the tyre that is now flat. In reality it isn't nice to have these things happen to you, but not necessarily due to you being "attacked" but often we jump to that conclusion, and in truth this is usually because we have been tired and forgot to fill the car up and drive more sensibily. Remember there can be at time a difference between spiritual warfare and our own mistakes - or to put it roughly "down to our stupidity". Spiritual warfare is exactly what it says on the tin! It is War! And as we have and do see war destroy peoples lives. So, then the question you need to ask is: as part of this war, which side are you on? and who do you have on your side to help you? Church often becomes a place where you expect to have allies and people on your side to help you fight the war, but sadly they often don't stand on your side. You often hear and see church talking about the outside community and with it how we are going to spread the good word outside of the church and stretch the boundaries that the"church" has to fight the war. Now the sad truth is that we have a pastoral team in most churches to help us to fight such battles that can occur inside church, but we often don't share the truth of our battles because of fear of judgement and critisim. But the enemy, Satan, is everywhere, often looking for your/our weakness, and this includes when you feel safest, a Church can be just as much a vulnerable place as anywhere else. 1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. 2 The people of Gaza were told, "Samson is here!" So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, "At dawn we’ll kill him." 3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron. 4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. 5 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." 6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued." As we can see in verse 2 that the trap for Samson was set, they laid and waited for him. Satan, the enemy and your enemy will do this, your fall, which ever one you are on or will have, you need to be aware, you are probable already on it! Now in this case Samson was being attacked in several ways: 1. There was already a pre-exsisting plan of attack worked on for Samson - this would imply that they knew him, and knew him well enough to know what would help in the capture of him. (How often do we feel blindsided when we are attacked in our spiritual warfare? This is because the enemy knows you and your weakness more than you do.) 2. The enemy also knew what Delilah's weakness was too. Hers was clearly money, and in equivalance to todays worth around 8 million pounds. So again, she was being attacked, to assist with the attack of Samson. 3. We see the weakness from the on set of the chapter, if not in the chapters before. We see his love of woman, his loneliness with the people who support him and his pride and strength. These are clearly things that will be ultimately used in his downfall. So we need to remember that God wants us to prepare ourselves for the fight that we are or will be having! We should also consider the mistakes that we have made before, which is often easier said than done. For Samson, it was not to live by what you see. Standing Strong and Pushing your boundaries: In Verse 1 we read that Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there. He hasn't learnt by his mistakes at all. His lustful ways have only got him in trouble, but he is overly confident, and is now just living by what he sees rather than living in the spirit. Not living in the spirit, and therfore not living in God, only allows you leave your faith aside, the one thing that should really help you in the spiritual battle. Stand strong in faith and what you know is right. Doubt is a valuable weapon, one that is often used by the enemy against you and if usually the thing that is used first. We need to also realise that sometimes pushing the boundaries isn't a good thing. Again, we see an example of this in verse 3 where Samson actually shows his strength and pride by actually extanding the city posts and gate. God gives us limits and boundaries to live and learn by. We mentioned earlier about the Christians who are always discussing the outreach into the community and not focusing on stengthening the "soliders" on the inside. This means that you only end up stretching you boundaries, your walls out, leaving more gaping holes, available for more of an attack. Please don't get me wrong though, i am not saying that you shouldn't go out into the community, I am not saying that people shouldn't push themselves in their personal boundaries to allow growth in the Lord. That I believe is very important. What I an talking about is spreading yourself too thinly. We often hear Christians using the Phillipians 4:13 verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" This is true, when we discuss Gods strength and power, and the power of prayer. But we need to remember our limits and boundaries. I can still climb to the top of my house and jump off - Yes God has allowed me to do that, He, although powerful enough to, won't allow me to grow wings and fly around the sky to then have a safe landing! So think about your boundaries, are you pushing the right ones? And in accordance with God?