The final difference between Samson and Samuel involves prayer. The Bible only mentions two occasions when Samson prayed. The first was when he thought he was dying of thirst and needed water: ‘Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord’ (Judges 15:18 NIV). The second was in the last moments of his life when he’d lost everything and ended up in prison. ‘Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more”’ (Judges 16:28 NIV). Sometimes our prayer life can end up like this. We only pray when we’re in need or in a desperate situation. On the other hand, Samuel had a strong prayer life. The Bible tells us that people realised he ‘was a true prophet of the Lord’ (1 Samuel 3:20 NCV). This is the kind of prayer life that God wants us to have. He wants us to be able to recognise His voice and to listen when He has things to tell us. Prayer shouldn’t be one way. We shouldn’t be only talking to God when we need something, we should be listening to Him too and using prayer to develop our relationship with Him. The Bible also talks a lot about Jesus’ prayer life. Sometimes He prayed all through the night; other times He was up praying before dawn. The Bible says: ‘Jesus often slipped away to be alone so he could pray’ (Luke 5:16 NCV). It was the secret of His effectiveness in ministry. By taking the time out to pray and connect with God, He was empowered to do God’s work on Earth. And when we also take the time out to pray, we’re empowered to do what God’s calling us to do too. Take some time out of your day to pray today. Try and shut yourself off from all distractions and focus on using that prayer time to develop your relationship with God.
Thursday 22 January
Christlike
‘He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own.’ Philippians 3:21 NLT
The Bible says our heavenly bodies will be just like the one Jesus had after His resurrection. He must have resembled Himself, because the disciples could recognise Him. He ate and drank with them. He could be touched. He could miraculously pass through walls. He could appear in various places to different people without travelling by any of the ways we do. His transformed body no longer aged, and it didn’t suffer sickness and death. And your new heavenly body will be like His. ‘Our citizenship is in heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly awaiting him to return as our Saviour. He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control’ (Philippians 3:20-21 NLT). As we go through our lives on earth, we might face health problems as our mortal bodies wear out. We might receive injuries that means our bodies don’t work as well as they should. If we’re honest, getting older is something we might find difficult to face. But whatever goes wrong with our earthly bodies, we can be confident that God will give us a new, perfect body when we get to heaven. And it’s not only our bodies that’ll be transformed. ‘We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him. This change in us brings ever greater glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 3:18 NCV). God’s constantly working in us to help us develop a Christlike character. It’s something we should all be aiming towards now, and a process that’ll finally be complete once we reach heaven.