Judges 16:17 – That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.

Hello readers, Samson said, if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. This is an incredible statement, and today I want to zero in on “like another other man”. If you have been saved, you are not “like any other man”. Salvation is a new creature, you are born again when you repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and eternal life. Salvation is a conversion, a kingdom change, it is a translation, it is a conversation and citizenship and seat in heaven.

So why do you want to be “like any other man”? Don’t you like holiness, purity, honour, goodness, faith, temperance, hope, charity?  Why do you want to be like the world? Why do you want to fit in? Why do you want their acceptance? Why do you need their validation? Why do you want their love? Why do you want to be just like any other man? So often we model our thinking, our speaking, and our doing on this world. We look with envy on this world and what they get to be and do while we miss out. And when your heart gets to longing after that world, when you don’t truly love the Father but love the world instead, you are going to be a goner like Samson was.

It’s madness to want to be like any other man. This world is packed full of men who are just like other men. All men are the same. They’re full of lust and pride and deception and vanity and wickedness. Why do you want to be like that? Everyone who’s ever read about Samson is at this point in his story screaming no Samson, don’t do it Samson, what are you doing Samson? Why would he want his strength to go? Why would he want to be weak? Delilah was not worth it, but because he had foolishly given his heart to her, he wanted to be just what she wanted him to be. Only a Christian can love a Christian, her love took from him, but God’s love gives, after all, God’s love gave us his Son.

When are we going to own our identity rather than trying to conform to what this world wants and demands and expects of us? For today’s church, they can’t stoop low enough to accommodate and fit in and be one with this world. They build their whole church “business model” around making the world feel comfortable and loved and everyone getting along. Hey, we’re just like you. Because after all, Jesus said this world loves his own. You’ve gotta be just like them for them to love you and accept you.

What a precious calling Samson had on his life, he’d lived on the grace of God, and he’d grown to despise it. Do you despise all that God has given you while you’re coveting something or someone who is going to be the very downfall of you? He wanted Delilah, and he wanted to prove his love to Delilah, but God’s love that excelled hers, he had grown to despise and was in contempt of. Samson had no business messing around with Philistines. They’d burnt him before, so why was he loving another one of them? Because he didn’t heed Proverbs, he didn’t keep his heart, he didn’t guard his heart, he didn’t commit his heart to God. Make no mistake, Satan is after your heart, and he wants it so he can stab it and kill it. He will  trash your life.

If you are a saved and born again child of God, you are not like any other man, because you have power and strength that this world does not know. You’re not like anyone else. You’re not like them. You have a God, the God of glory, that this world does not know nor can see. You are special, you are precious, you are separated, you are set apart unto God. We often think if only I had Samson’s ability. But you do. You have the Spirit of God, and greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. Faith is the victory that overcomes this world. It’s not you can’t have victory in your life, it’s not that you can’t overcome, often you just don’t want it.

Samson toyed around with something and someone who was not good for him. He entertained sin. He circled it. He’d always been able to “manage” his sin. He’d been able to sin and “get by” with it. He got away, or so he thought, with his sin multiple times. But he took God’s grace as an “hey, I can get away with this” rather than “thank you so much for sparing me God I’m never going to do that garbage again”. He did what all modern Christians do, used God’s grace as a license to sin. We are not saved to sin. We are saved to serve. But this time his stupidity got him, and the damage was irreversible. He’d never get those eyes back. There are things you won’t get back when you keep going back to things against your better judgment all because you like Delilah’s curves.

The sad part is, most Christians today are just like any other man. There is nothing that sets them apart from the world. They have the name, but they’re just the same. They’re shaved of their strength, and God is not with them. And that’s why this world loves them. That’s why they don’t experience persecution. There’s no power, no strength and no victory. They’re as conquered as Samson was as he went round and round grinding corn for the Philistines. This world will put pressure on you to be like any other man and then you’ll endlessly grovel and pander and compromise to please them, to win their favour, to earn their love, and they’ll throw it in your face. The prodigal son didn’t have too many buddies in that pigpen he ended up in.

The worst thing you’ll ever do is be willing to trade in God, trade in truth, trade in the gospel, trade in your Bible just so you can be like any other man. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it. Samson fell asleep in Delilah’s lap one day, and her pretty eyes was the last thing he ever saw in this life. Was trading in his strength worth it? We know it surely was not.

The amount of Christians that have been completely shaved of all their strength and power is incredible. It’s a pretty close shave that they’ve had as well. There’s no trace of strength or God left on them. God was gone from Samson. Completely gone, and he didn’t even know it. When you trade in the Bible for a cheap imitation, you are trading in the power of God. When you change the gospel, change the music, change the worship, change the doctrine all because you’ve changed God’s words, you become just like any other man.

Christians have been seduced, they were seduced by lies, by false doctrine, by philosophy, by reasoning, by enticing words, by seducing spirits, by humanism, by evolution, by secular psychology, by popularity, by acceptance, by intellectualism, by their feelings, by money. And they are now just like any other man. Many Christians are indistinguishable from this world. There is nothing exceptional about them. They live conquered and blind. There’s not strength and no power. You know the Bible says the gospel is the POWER of God unto salvation. People don’t even have gospel power anymore. They don’t even know what salvation is. You don’t hear words like hell, wrath, judgment, sin anymore. No, that’s all been shaved off by Delilah.

If the victory that overcomes the world is our faith, when you leave the faith, when you depart from the truth, you also lose your victory, just like Samson did. We don’t lack for “Christians” in today’s society. But we lack for true Christians who have strength, who are not like any other man. What sets a true Christian apart? They’ve got something in them that others don’t. Samson was exceptional. He had a power that was unknown to the Philistines. He wasn’t sinless, and neither are we. But God was with him, and because God was with him, Samson was exceptional.

Samson was a Nazarite, and that means he was separated unto God. Your power lies in you being separated unto the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Separate yourself unto the truth. Don’t accept lies anymore. Don’t live for this world anymore. God will divide you from this world and all it’s ways and thinking and doing things. And there is power in that. There’s still power in the word of God, the Holy Bible, whom the Holy Spirit of God always honours and works in perfect accordance with. The Nazarite vow was a vow of separation, where the person in that vow consecrated themselves to the service and worship of God. Every Christian is a spiritual Nazarite unto God. But when they should be serving God and dedicating their life to his service and his will and his glory, they’re instead asleep and shaven of their strength in Delilah’s lap. When you’re asleep in your enemy’s lap, you really have lost the plot.

Christians have lost the plot. The sad part is when you don’t even know that God is not with you. Samson didn’t even know the power was gone. How incredible was that. He’d grown that insensitive and callous to God he didn’t even realize God was gone in his life. Maybe you’re so used to your sinful life and so darn used to disobeying God that you aren’t even sensitive to his presence and his leading and his blessing in your life. You don’t even know the difference, because there is no difference. You’re so used to doing things your way you know how, God is irrelevant to you. You’ve used him as your “get out of jail” so often, hey you only need him when you need him to perform something for you at your behest. You speak to Christians today, and they think God is with them but he’s not. They’re missing something, and what they’re missing is the power of God in their life. Their life has no authority, no foundation, no life. If you’re not in the vine, you have no life. A branch not in him withers up and is burned.

When you should be watching and praying, you are instead sleeping. Samson had no idea of the danger he was in. In the same room the Philistines were waiting. You have no idea how close you are to disaster. When you should be keeping the watch, you’re fast asleep. You were sleeping when the enemy slipped those lies in, when the enemy sowed the seed of doubt and disobedience in your life. You were asleep when it was time to be vigilant and keep your house. Satan is a thief, because he will steal everything most precious to you if you don’t watch and guard and pray and be vigilant and sober and ready and walk circumspectly and redeem the time God has given you.

So today, please consider the truth of Samson’s life “like any other man”. As soon as you depart from the word of God, you will be just like any other man. As soon as you depart from the faith, you will be weak and powerless. There are so many Christians out there with a clean shave. They’ve been shaved of their Bible, of faith, of truth, of righteousness, of spiritual sight, of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of their witness and testimony to this world. They have nothing to offer anyone else.

If Samson’s hair was so crucial, maybe he should’ve kept it? There are things you should hang on to in life. Your Bible is so crucial, why don’t you hang on to it? The purity and preservation of scripture is fundamental to your salvation and your faith, why not hang on to it? Are you going to be seduced away from the truth and authority of scripture? The very basis of your faith and relationship with God? You see, hair grows over time, and over time, as you read your Bible, you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why lose all that? Why trade all that truth in? It’s amazing how people can grow up in a godly home and trade it all away in a heartbeat. Why throw away all that God has shown and taught and grown in you in your life? Christendom is in the state it’s in because it was seduced, and it slept, and it was shaved. And it has no strength and no power, although true believers still remain and still have it.

Instead of standing, they’re sleeping. Instead of powerful, they’re powerless. Instead of strength, there is weakness. Instead of a house built upon the rock, they’re built on the sand. Please note, Samson’s’ strength lay in his God, when God departed from him, he was done. Our strength doesn’t come from ourselves. And maybe that’s why you’re so weak, because your life is about your capacity and intellect and ability and feelings and thoughts and rationalizations. The Christian life is a life of trusting in God every second of every day. We received the Spirit by faith, and we walk in the Spirit by faith. Hopefully today you can make that commitment to God not to be seduced and enticed from what is true and right and good, don’t trade in your God for Delilah, and don’t trade in that strength and power just so you can be weak like any other man.

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