MY FRIENDS, WILL YOU GIVE IT ALL TO GOD TODAY?

Sep. 20, 2016

MY FRIENDS, WILL YOU GIVE IT ALL TO GOD TODAY?

“I give myself away Lord so you can use me. Here I am here I stand Lord, my life is in your hands. Lord, I’m longing to see Your desires revealed in me Lord, So Take my heart Take my life as a living sacrifice all my dreams all my plans Lord I place them in your hands. My life is not my own, to you I belong “ (William Mcdowell, Give Myself Away) My heart, my dreams, my plans, my life. My friends, it all must be given to God today “In Judges 16 we know the narrative of Samson’s downfall.

Delilah convinces Samson to give her the secret of His strength. “No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me,…and I shall become like any other man.” She then lulled him to sleep and had someone to shave off the seven locks of his hair and when he awoke “he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.”

The narrative continues, Samson is captured, put in jail and his eyes put out. What a sad scenario to the strongest man who has ever lived. Now it becomes personal because many times in our life we are lulled to sleep by the things of this world which then causes us not to recognize the voice of God Calling us back to him. Many times before, Samson had violated his vows as a Nazirite, but why now has God’s departed from Samson?

My friends, God is all knowing, and if He knows how much we can bear, He also knows when we have crossed that line. It never was about the hair but about God’s blessings and grace. But God did not allow the story to end there because Samson was “brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” and our God’s promises says, when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)

and sometimes we fall and we don’t know how to get up until we are in the “valley of the shadow of death” and that is when we cry out “Lord Here I am, my life is in your hands.” My friends, I can only imagine at some point while Samson was in prison He found God again. And that is where it becomes personal again, because it is our life that the god of this world consumes our undivided attention that should be spent praising and serving God.

And maybe God will have to bring us to our knees before we realize we were raised in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord” and he has always been our “rock and [our] fortress and [our] deliverer,” in every situation and circumstances of our life. My friends God did not leave Samson. He just removed His protection and blessings. Remember Job, just don’t kill him. Now we must ask, at this point in our life have we crossed that line?

Have we completely ignored God’s pleas to return to Him? Samson while in prison was given the opportunity to focus on all of his lost blessings throughout his life. But his final act was the sacrifice of his life to God as he killed more Philistines than he had killed in his entire life.” My friends God calls us today. If our desire is to follow Him we must take up our cross. But with that Cross comes responsibilities, but it also brings life eternal. Samson is in the Faith, hall of fame in Heb. 11:32 (KJV) and if we give God our all we will see him one day in the earth made new.