Pastor John’s Blog

The title of this devotion is an oxymoron for it contains two words that contradict each other—“strong weakness.” And yet, this phrase describes Samson’s weakness—lust—that continued to grow stronger in his life. A short time after Samson married the Philistine woman (Judg. 14:3) the Philistines burned her to death as a vengeful act against Samson, something from which he never seemed to recover. Samson retaliated with the superhuman strength that God gave him by picking up the jaw bone of a donkey and killing one thousand Philistines with it! But despite this display of superhuman strength Samson’s weakness continued to grow. Judges 16:1 says, “One day Samson went to the Philistine town of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute” (NLT). With no wife Samson resorted to using a prostitute to satisfy his lust. It is ironic that with all of his physical strength he could not tame his lust. This goes to show us that human strength alone is not enough to beat lust. We need God’s help. But the news quickly spread for soon the men of the city found out that Samson was staying at the prostitute’s house and waited until morning to kill him. But in a paradoxical fashion this broken, lustful man “…stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the town gate, including the two posts, and lifted them up, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them all the way to the top of the hill across from Hebron” (NLT). You need to understand that the doors of the town gate were enormous and incredibly heavy! Samson was able to perform this great feat because the Spirit of God empowered him to do so. So why didn’t God’s Spirit help Samson beat his lust problem? The answer is that the Holy Spirit was trying to help Samson overcome his lust problem, but Samson did NOT want to let go of it. Colossians 3:5 says, “So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires” (NLT). Notice that it says “put to death…” This is referring to our part in this process. We need to want to get rid of lust. It is only then that God’s Spirit will be able to help us.

Lust does not have to be sexual. We can lust after all kinds of things. This desire only grows when we feed it. So today, if you are having a lust problem do the following. Stop feeding it. Don’t gratify your desire. And ask God’s Spirit to empower you to beat it. When we are willing God is able!