Sat.’s Devo - Strength in Weakness

Read: Judges 15:1-16:31; John 2;1-25; Psalm 103:1-22; Proverbs 14:17-19
Remember the woman who gave away Samson’s answer to his riddle to save her family from being burned by the Philistines? Today that same woman along with her whole family was burned alive.
Samson came back for her only to find that her father had given her to his best man. So Samson took 300 foxes and tied their tails together in pairs and sent them through their wheat fields. Their vineyards and olive groves were also destroyed. They sent 3,000 men to get Samson. He killed 1,000 of them with the jawbone of a donkey.
This is all happening during the season of Pentecost so we see the multiples of 3 since the Holy Spirit is the third of the Trinity and he does things in multiples. On the day he introduced himself to the world, in Acts, he saved 3,000. The Holy Spirit brings his fire and burns up all the chaff in our lives and gives us a new start.
What was a defeat for the enemy, became a fountain of living water for Samson.
Then Samson fell for Delilah which means “bringing low” and she was the one to bring him down. She wore him down trying to find the secret to his strength. She betrayed Samson and they cut his hair and apprehended him, gouging out his eyes so he would never be able to see another woman. They put him in prison but never understood the covenant of God on Samson’s life. His strength was given in his hair and in prison, they allowed his hair to grow.
At a festival to Dagon, God showed up in Samson and brought the whole house down killing 3,000 of them. (It must have been Pentecost!)
Samson was a picture of what God can do with a person empowered by the Holy Spirit. God used Samson’s weakness to show his great power. God uses our weaknesses to be strong.
In John, Jesus did his first miracle in Cana. Mary forced Jesus to enter into his destiny. I wonder if Jesus had thought about the day he would come out and start his ministry. I bet he didn’t plan on doing it at a wedding making drunk men drunker but that was exactly how God wanted him to announce himself. I can only imagine that he was already doing miracles at home and Mary knew he could turn the water to wine. Maybe he had done that for her before. But, mothers always know best (lol) and he obeyed.
Doing this one thing empowered Jesus to go to the temple and, like Samson, he showed his strength in the Lord. He whipped the merchants and chased them out of the temple, overthrowing their tables. The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus to give them a sign that he had authority to do this and Jesus said, “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” That left them scratching their heads in wonder.
Lord, it is wonderful to see how you use normal people to show yourself strong. Use us today to raise up your Kingdom on earth.