March 19                                        Num 18 - 20

OVER CONFIDENCE

MEMORISE: ‘O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.’ (Jer 10: 23)
READ: Judges 16; 1- 10

One servant of God who received several jabs from Satan but never learnt his lesson was Samson. He went to Gaza and slept with a prostitute and after that the anointing still flowed. Earlier he had broken his Nazarene consecration not to touch or eat anything that was defiled. He took honey and ate from the lion he had killed.

The devil kept telling him with some evidence that it did not matter what he did or did not do. Whenever he needed the anointing, it would flow. And he began to believe Satan’s lie.

‘Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil’ (Eccles 8:11).

In Judges 16: 4, Samson went after another woman named Delilah. He was playing with a snake, but because he had not been bitten, he believed that it could never bite. Some people do not believe in the reality of HIV/Aids. They tell you they can never contact the disease, yet they are not faithful to their spouses. By the time they believe in it, it might be too late for them.

Delilah clearly revealed her intention as an agent of the enemy sent to destroy the anointing of God upon Samson’s life (v 6). Samson thought he was up to the challenge and refused to run. Many Christians begin to backslide this way. They know that they are doing is bad, but hey begin to rationalize it. Some begin to think that a cigarette or a glass of beer a day is not bad. Some begin to steal little by little an feel it is all right as long as one is not caught.

These are little jabs. Satan will not stop there. He is already working towards getting such compromisers down via the hook and the knockout punch. Samson soon disclosed the true source of his power and was knocked out (vv 17-21). Yet Satan did not stop until he had Samson killed. Are you overconfident? Are you always rationalizing things and saying they don’t matter? Are you toying with sin at present? Repent before your pet sin swallows you completely.

ACTION POINT
List ten things capable of causing overconfidence in your life.
Submit to the Holy Spirit and begin to pray against them.