Really looking forward to the first worship concert that I will attend in September at the Ultra. After singing more than a dozen Citipointe Live songs in church on Sundays, I guess it’s time that I get to see the band in person.
Tree roots for a hammock and splashing waves for music. It doesn’t get any better than this!
I miss old praise and worship songs like this. Most people today have never heard of Ron Kenoly but for those of us who attended church in the 90s, before there was Planetshakers, CitiPointe Live and Chris Tomlin, there was the old familiar voice of Ron Kenoly.
I was never really good with Math. Whenever I see numbers on my test paper, I’d get instant headaches. So when I took my final exams in Statistics course, I was in a major spiritual crisis. I will never forget what happened that day. It was late in the afternoon, I was alone in my dorm room profusely sweating as I nervously took my old scientific calculator from the drawer and started scribbling the formulas at the back cover using pencil. I sighed a faint prayer of fake repentance while Jaci Velasquez was singing “I Get On My Knees” in the background. I didn’t want to listen to the song but I didn’t want to stop the player either.
After I copied the formulas, I neatly tucked the calculator inside my bag and started out of the door when I realized that I needed to say at least a little prayer. It was very unnerving. How do you ask God to bless your cheating? How do you say “Let me cheat just this one time, I’m sorry, bless me anyway and please don’t hold this against me?”
After so much hesitation, I went back inside, sat in my bed for a minute and mumbled, “Lord… ” Minutes passed and I was still speechless. I couldn’t form the words. I wanted to just get up and go but part of me remembered how Esau lost his birthright for a plate of food.
Jaci Velasquez’s song was still ringing in my head. “When I close my eyes, no darkness there; there’s only light… I get on my knees…”
Slowly, I took the calculator from my bag, ripped the cover apart, dropped it in my study table and went out of the door to face the dreaded numbers in my Statistics exam. I was a bit teary eyed as I walked into the exam room, not because I was going to fail but because I it was a difficult decision that I had to make.
As I quietly settled into my chair, I looked around the quite room to see how my classmates were doing. They had a uniform grim look on their faces. Then something caught my eyes. There on the white board in front of us I saw random formulas our professor wrote for us. The formulas had no names. The trick was for us to identify which one to use for the specific problems in the exam. Those were the same random formulas I wrote in the cover of my calculator.
I felt a lump on my throat as I silently said a prayer of thanks.
Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued. Judges 16: 6
The story of Samson and Delilah is one of the most interesting stories of the Bible because for the most part, it reads like fiction about how a very strong man was subdued into submission by a beautiful woman. When I was a kid, I thought it was one of those fairy tale stories that were meant to teach us moral lessons in the end. Little did I know that the story was actually taken from the Bible and it contained richer spiritual lessons for our lives today.
One such lesson that struck me today when I chanced upon the passage was how Samson didn’t protect the source of his strength. On many occasions, we read of his loose morals. Like so many young people today, he was one who sowed wild oats wherever he went. He was young, he wanted to enjoy life and he wanted to explore the wonders of his sexuality. Whenever he saw a girl he liked, he’d do everything he can to get her even if it meant stirring up trouble. His extraordinary strength afforded him everything he ever wanted. It was probably the coolest thing in the world for a guy.
But the day of reckoning came faster than he expected. He met the beautiful Delilah and in a short period of time, his world crumbled down.
In his preoccupation with pleasure, Samson forgot to protect the source of his strength. He forgot that God gave him power to accomplish something greater than his escapades. His gifts were meant to deliver Israel, not create a harem of girls who swoon when they see him. He forgot that to maintain his power, he needed to keep his commitment and integrity as a Nazirite.
The tragedy of Samson’s life speaks loud and clear to us today. It teaches us to cover and protect the very things that make us strong. That includes our time of communion with God when we read our Bibles and pray; our fellowship with other believers when we attend church and discipleship groups; our commitment to our calling; our personal time of worship and a hundred other things that keep us spiritually strong and refreshed.
How are you protecting the things that keep you strong?
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3: 3
If you’ve read the book of Acts lately, you’ll notice that Paul was literally a preaching machine. He was unstoppable. Everywhere he went, people got saved, lives were changed and history was altered. But not everyone was happy with him. Some of the Christians started to question his legitimacy as a preacher of the gospel and it came to a point when they asked him for a letter of recommendation from Jerusalem.
Paul’s answer to his critics was sharp. He didn’t need to produce a letter signed by the Apostolic team in Jerusalem because the lives of the people who were changed by his preaching were proof enough of the legitimacy of his ministry. Why should he carry around in his pocket a piece of paper when the people in the churches he planted carry around with them the signature of the life of Christ?
The text also gives us a glimpse of what a Christian is supposed to look like. Christians are supposed to be walking large-print letters, readable by all men. Our conduct should unmistakably point people to Christ and they should never have to guess if we are Christians or not. Like giant billboard ads, the message of our lives should be visible and readable and plain for everyone to see, not buried below a tiny asterisk.
Jojo Agot 