Taking God's Presence for Granted

Read Judges 16

Judges 16:20
He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.

How easy it is for us to take God for granted.

Samson had great strength. It was freely bestowed upon him not because he was better than others. God had ear-marked him for greatness. He was raised carefully but never took responsibility and ownership of his calling.

He squandered and despised his call by doing things according to his carnal appetites. Samson was a man who lived for himself to satisfy his own desires. His frivolous attitude toward God led him to think that his supernatural strength came from himself.

“I’ll go out as before and shake myself free”. There are two mistakes in Samson’s beliefs.

First, he presumed that things will never change. Complacency and a false sense of control of our lives is the first sign of backsliding in our hearts. We become so confident of how things will be and have a false sense of how things should be that we forget that we are not God.

Second, he believed that he could shake himself free. We cannot free ourselves on our own. We cannot save ourselves. We can never shake ourselves free. Only Jesus can. Our greatest enemy is not others, circumstances or the world. Our greatest enemy is our own sinful self. Satan knows that if He can get us to focus on ourselves, he has defeated us.

It is interesting that Samson only prayed after he realized that God had left him (Judges 16:28). May it never be to us to learn to call on God only when we discover that we have left Him out of our lives.

Psalm 51:11-12
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.