“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is LORD and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9
The fifth and final test we are going to look at this week is the courage test. We read in Judges 14:6,9 and 15:14 that “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him [Samson].” There are these moments in Samson’s life where the Spirit of God drops on him and, all of a sudden, he has divine power. He’s supernaturally empowered like in Judges 15 where he kills a thousand Philistine men with the jawbone of a donkey!
At the end of Judges 16, he pushes out the walls of the Temple of Dagon and it says that he kills “3,000 Philistine men.” Does Samson pass the courage test? Yes. The two that he passed are the salvation test and the courage test. He fails the other three tests, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, personal holiness, and women. At the end of his life, he’s a blind prisoner of war that commits suicide to kill his enemies. He dies vengeful, bitter, and alone without a wife, children, or friends.
The problem with Samson’s life was that he never repented. He never changed and he never pivoted or listened. He never had one person in authority speak into his life. Samson never assembled around himself a group of people to hold him accountable and help him make decisions. He was a complete loner from beginning to end. Samson knew Jesus as His savior, but he didn’t surrender to Him as his Lord. He was saved, but he couldn’t be saved from himself. He had courage and he still self-destructed because he didn’t surrender every area of his life to Jesus.
As we close this week’s devotionals with a prayer, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on whether or not you have surrendered to Jesus as both your Savior and your Lord. Lord Jesus, thank You that You are not just our Savior but our Lord. You don’t just forgive our sins, but you rule over our lives and if we bring our lives under your Lordship, we will grow in personal holiness, have a deeper sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and we can then be led and controlled by our God and not our desires and the wrong kind of people. Lord, I want every person reading this to know that they can be forgiven for all of their sins and that it’s not too late. Samson didn’t finish well but it’s not too late for them. They just need to repent and pivot; they need to surrender and change. God, I know that You will give them the grace to do that because they are your children and You love them. Father, if your children want to do the right thing, I know that You will help them because that is Your heart as our Father and we thank You for that in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help. Visit https://realfaith.com/faq/ for privacy and terms info.