May 12, 2019

Judges 13 New International Version (NIV)

13 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. 5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

6 Then the woman went to her husband and told him, “A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he said to me, ‘You will become pregnant and have a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from the womb until the day of his death.’”

8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord: “Pardon your servant, Lord. I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.”

9 God heard Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 The woman hurried to tell her husband, “He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!”

11 Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, “Are you the man who talked to my wife?”

“I am,” he said.

12 So Manoah asked him, “When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule that governs the boy’s life and work?”

13 The angel of the Lord answered, “Your wife must do all that I have told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her.”

The second thing God showed me about The Gift if The Holy Spirit through the life of Samson is that we must NURTURE THE GIFT

There is a need for us to nurture the gift of The Holy Spirit in our lives and in this story the nurturing begins, not with Samson, but with his mother.

Again, we see a foreshadowing of the Gift if the Holy Spirit in the New Testament in that the nurturing of the gift in our lives does not begin with us but with the one who gives the Gift – Jesus.  His righteousness is not only our example of how to nurture the Gift of The Holy Spirit, but it is his righteousness that is imparted unto us

So, with that righteousness how do we nurture the Gift if The Holy Spirit that has been given us?\

1.   Daily

The nurture of this gift was to be daily.  The Angel of God didn’t give them instructions that were to be followed only once or only for a short period of time.  These rules were to govern the gift for the entire life of Samson…. “From the womb until the day of his death.”

One of the mistakes we make in nurturing our relationship with Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit is that we don’t do it daily.  Jesus said that we are to take up our cross daily and follow him.  Likewise, we should daily keep in step with the spirit.  We should daily exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The gift is not for special occasions or one day a week, but for every day of our lives.

Take time each day to believe in the gift, thank Him for the gift, exercise the gift, and rely upon the gift for the power you need to live a life consecrated to God

2.   Details

In a similar way, this passage teaches us that the Nurture of the gift occurs in the details of our lives.

The instructions don’t just pertain to special times of worship of God but to the very details of everyday life.  What he ate, drank, and came into contact with was an important part of nurturing this gift.  His obedience to the instructions of God (what to do and what not to do) was a vital part of the nurturing of this gift.

According to the New Testament it is important for us as well.  And here is where we miss it so many times.  Like Samson, we fail to incorporate the life God wants us to live in every detail of our lives. We tend to see it in the big things of life but not in the everyday details. What we say, what we do, what we allow into our lives, our obedience to the commands of God

John 14:15-17 New International Version (NIV)

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

 Notice that in this passage, Jesus ties the gift of The Holy Spirit into the life of the believer who nurtures the gift in the details of their life by living in obedience

I also want to point out how hungry Samson’s parents were to know the details of how they should live and raise Samson.  I pray that we too we be hungry to know the ways of God as they pertain to the details of our lives.  I pray that we would seek him and ask him how to apply biblical truth and principles to our everyday lives

Which brings us to the third aspect of nurturing the gift found in Judges 13

 3.   Doable

There is nothing in this passage that indicates that the instructions for nurturing the gift were impossible.  No cry of foul by Samson’s parents.  No whining that what God asked of them was too hard.  It was and is DOABLE

Nurturing the gift of The Holy Spirit is doable precisely because the Gift, himself, gives us the power to do what God is asking us to do.