Do You Have A Gift? Or Does Your Gift Have You?

Judges 16:1-5 (NIV)
One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. The people of Gaza were told, "Samson is here!" So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, "At dawn we'll kill him."

But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, "See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels
of silver."

We can probably tell when pride started taking over in Samson's life, I would think it was right around the point when he ripped the gates of the city off and carried them up the hill, just because he could.

If you read on you will see that he allowed the gift that God gave him to corrupt him, and lead to his death. He was so cocky and ignorant of what was going on, Delilah was able to trick him after three attempts into giving up the secret of his great strength. Its hard to read this and not think or even say out loud "What are you thinking?" It seemed so obvious to me ( the reader) but he was so very blinded.

In your life God has given you gifts and strengths, each one a little different than the other. To Samson He gave great strength, to you he gave .....What? Was it wisdom, a gift of Knowledge, super fast runner, a gift of prophecy, are you a computer genius, a financial powerhouse? There are so many the list could go on, the point today is what ever gift or strength God has given to you to use in His service, do just that and use it for Him, to do His will in your life and never let that get away from you. The moment you do it in your power to satisfy pride, you have set yourself on the same path that Samson did and it will eventually lead to destruction.