My Vision - r.b5z.net



// Mt. 6:19-23; Judges 16:15-18

Jesus teaches a very profound principle in our text. One of the worst things you can lose is your vision. Not talking about your natural sight, but the spiritual sight that comes on the inside of you. The bible says the eyes are the light of the body therefore if the eye is single the whole body is full of light. Metaphorically the same thing the eye does to the body your vision does to your spirit. It illuminates and causes you to have light. It is a place of entrance, it stops the darkness. Close your eyes. Your body is still working but you can’t see how to direct it into anything. The only hope you have for light comes through your eyes, so if you lose your vision your whole body becomes full of darkness.

As it is naturally so it is spiritually. All the enemy has to do to impair your mobility, stop your movement, and impede your progress is to take your vision. One of the most difficult things to do is to have a singleness of vision and heart. Sometimes your heart wants what your vision is fighting against. We follow our heart when we should follow our vision.

Samson and Delilah

Samson is known more than anything else for his little excursion with Delilah. It’s a fascinating story packed with revelation that we can use as warning signs to help us today. I submit to you that the story is more than just lust. Samson’s interaction with Delilah goes a lot deeper than falling for a pretty woman. God is speaking to us about mighty men, challenges of vision and heart, past hurts, and baggage.

We are introduced to Samson first when we see his mother vowed that he would be a Nazarite and no razor would touch his head and he would belong to the Lord. He entered into his covenant and walked his purpose and calling all the way up to the point where he had fallen in love with a Philistine woman. His trouble doesn’t start with Delilah. If you minimize his struggle to that point then you miss what God is showing us through his ministry and life.

The Starting Point

Judges 14:19—and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house. 20 But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend. Samson had fallen in love with a Philistine woman. He has chosen her, fought for her, and was going to consummate the marriage with her; only to find out that his friend had her.

15:1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid’ and he said I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray thee, instead of her. 3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. He has an attitude now and he is saying now, don’t blame me for what I do next.

Fighting For Wrong Reasons

Now he’s fighting the right battle but for the wrong reasons. He’s fighting with an attitude from past pain. Sometimes we find ourselves engaged in the right battle, but we’re fighting it from a position of strain and not strength. Now you’re filled with bitterness and you are trying to prove something to people. You may be fighting a good fight but for wrong reasons. Samson wages war but he’s not fighting according to the plan of God but out of the bitterness of what he’s been through.

You’d be surprised at the people who say they are fighting in the name of the Lord but they are fighting over some issues and unresolved problems they have in their life, and they are using a bunch of scriptures to cover up an area in their lives that has not been healed. We should pray Lord deliver me from the things in my past that are roaming around in my present trying to destroy my future. Samson’s big mistake is that he could never get over what happened with his first wife. It affected how he thought, fought, and allowed the Philistines to plot against him. They knew he liked their women and he wasn’t over the one he lost. So when they got ready to bring him down they hired one of their women. Whatever doesn’t get healed in you may kill you.

The Soul Tie

Samson was created to have one vision but because of a bad moment in his life it has created division. Now he is walking around with two different agendas. His heart is going one way when his vision is going another way. It wasn’t that he just lusted after her but he loved her. Because of his tie to her he fell. You won’t fully understand that unless you’ve been tied to something or someone that was killing you. He was bent on trying to keep this woman. He says I am not going to lose again. I’m not going to lose this one. She was trying to kill him and he knew it. As mighty as Samson was there was no harm in running from her.

Secrets of Strength

She kept trying to seduce him out of his secrets; like our situations try to seduce us for the secret of our strength. Whoever you give your secrets to you’ve given your heart to. Your secrets will go where your heart is. Out of the heart flows the issues of life. 16:15 And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and has not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. 16 And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; 17 that he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. (14:15-17 Warning shot). The enemy studies you…

Warship in Worship

He was strong until he got vexed (torment; trouble; distress). That’s why we come to worship services so you can get your spiritual equilibrium (balance) back. The enemy works to torment, trouble and distress you. But when you worship it washes you and strengthens you. We have to resist the temptation to be too cute to worship. You can’t put the word on top of junk; you need to wash with worship so the word can enter in.

The enemy wants to vex you until you destroy yourself. We get attacked endlessly and wait for someone to come along and deliver us from ourselves. But when you are really ready to be delivered you will speak to yourself; Father I stretch my hands unto thee, no other help I know. Create in me a clean heart and renew your right Spirit within me. Sometimes you’ve got to lay yourself down on the couch and analyze yourself.

The Anointing

Samson’s covenant was not in his hair, it was in his heart. Delilah would have never gotten his hair if she didn’t first get his heart. The length of his hair was an outer sign of an inner covenant in his heart. The problem with this text is that we get our images from T.V. when we think about Samson we think about a buff muscular person. But it would be crazy of Delilah to ask where his strength came from if he looked strong. I challenge you today to look at the sign of the anointing of God on his life. I submit to you that he looked like Pee Wee Herman but fought like Arnold Swartzenegger. This is the sign of the anointing of God in your life is that you have something that it doesn’t look like you’re supposed to have. What’s in you isn’t always seen on you.

Envision

When he gave his heart to her they put his eyes out. He lost his vision because he gave his heart to the thing that vexed him. He went from one vision to division to no vision. Until a little boy led him out to put his hands on the pillars of the coliseum. There he got envision. Envision is when you can’t see it outwardly so you have to feel your way and envision yourself. It has to do with what you see on the inside. Close your eyes and envision yourself moving into a new area in your life; overcoming your struggles, possessing the promises of God. You will get light, and joy on the inside.

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