And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. (Judges 16:20 ESV) Each and every single one of us has an inner strength that cannot be broken because God has anointed us with His presence within us. That is a fact! It is the resolve that pulls us through all our difficult situations. It is the joy that pushes through when we are disappointed and sad. It is the reason, we often times find ourselves extending beyond our known capacities in crisis to be a part of something much more miraculous than we imagined. Our hubris lies in our betrayal of God’s presence in our lives. When we deny God’s grace by placing our unconditional hope, trust and salvation on somebody who is not God, we don’t notice the power of God leaving us and the power of the person we place our hope, trust and salvation entering into our souls. This is not me saying salvation by the blood of Jesus is conditional. This is me saying that we have the tendency to limit and push God out of our lives by making other people and other things gods in our hearts. Nobody can give us greater strength than God when His Spirit rushes into us. Yet, we so easily become disinterested in the power of God flowing through us despite what we witnessed in our lives and settle for a cheap knockoff lower case “g” god in the form of another person or thing. When we look at the story of Samson, whose great long hair was the source of his strength, we tend to write the fantastic story off as a mythological fairy tale in the likeness of Hercules. There is one difference between Hercules and Samson: Samson’s strength came to him out of grace, in a time of need, from the Spirit of God rushing to him for the sake of salvation and deliverance. Samson knew that he was nothing special. He knew that before God he was just some fool who got played and lost the love of his life to his so called friends. However, fully knowing this, he betrays God in his heart by pouring out his heart to the person who became his “everything”, his idol, and as a result he lost everything by his own accord. Don’t be confused today. Your strength comes from within you, but only by the grace of God rushing upon you. Your greatest strength cannot be summoned like Chinese food take out, so we need to stop treating God like week old leftovers in our fridge. Delilah’s greatest trick wasn’t one of cunning, it was one of dulling the agency of Samson’s life mission and seeping into his life like an idol. He put his trust in something other than God and that was all she wrote. If you found yourself or are finding yourself misplacing your trust, hope, salvation and strength, it is time to call upon God and ask for a new deliverance. You are called to do great things in His power. God’s strength is the only way you’ll get there.