Potential

This morning as I was reading in the Book of Judges, Chapter 16, the first few verses were very sad for me.

Samson was possibly the strongest man in the Bible - He had amazing strength and he came from a godly home. The Angel of The Lord visited his father and his mother and said that he was to drink no strong drink, he was to eat no unclean food and he was brought up in the fear of God. But Samson had a weakness - he had a lust for women and that was ultimately his downfall, especially when it ended up with Delilah.

As we look forward to the New Year we really need to understand that we are in a war and the devil himself will try every temptation he can to make us fall. Never think that you are beyond the temptation of the devil. I would exhort you today to sit down, before you get into the new year, and take stock of your life and where you are standing. If there is any area of your life where you are opening a door to the devil, ask The Holy Spirit to close it firmly - to lock it and to throw the key away! The Bible says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord”. (Romans Chapter 6:23).

Let us get rid of any baggage in our lives because we are going into the most challenging and the most exciting year that I think the world has ever known - 2021. There are going to be great opportunities because people, like never before, are asking questions. They are asking questions about eternity and about the Christian lifestyle. This is going to be our opportunity to say that we need to live lives which bring glory to God. It is a very, very tough thing to be able to say the following, but I believe we have to, and in order to do so we need to make sure that our lives are in order. The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 1, said: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” Quite daunting, isn’t it? But that is what we have to do if God is going to use us.

The tragedy about Samson is that he had so much potential. Fortunately, at the end of his life, he was able to redeem himself - to a degree, but it came at a terrible cost. He had his eyes gouged out, he was humiliated, he was put into chains but eventually, his strength came back. Let us not make life any more difficult for ourselves than we have to.

The good news is that, if Christ is for us, no man can stand against us (Romans 8:31) - We have the victory in Christ. But we cannot afford to compromise, not even one iota, if we want to be used by The Lord Jesus Christ in this coming year.

May God bless you as you sit down and calculate and count the cost. Deal with anything in your life that can hold you back in this coming year.

God bless you,
Angus and Jill Buchan