📅 27 November 2025
📚 BELIEVE HIS PROPHETS
📖 Daily Bible Reading
⚖️ Judges 14 – Samson – Strength, riddles and a divided heart
✨ When calling and weakness live in the same life
🌐 Read online here
🔵 Introduction
Judges 14 is one of the best-known and most surprising chapters in Samson’s story. We do not meet him as a flawless hero, but as an impulsive man with a unique calling. His life shows us this truth: God works even when people are inconsistent, weak, or unwise. This chapter is not a polished moral example—it is a mirror reflecting the tension between divine calling and human vulnerability.
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🟡 Commentary
Samson leaves his parents’ home and meets a Philistine woman he likes—and that is enough for him. Neither heritage nor spiritual identity seem to matter. His parents are shocked, for Israel lived under Philistine oppression, yet their son desires union with them. They see only human danger—not God’s greater purpose. For God intended to provoke confrontation, to awaken Israel from its paralysis and compromise.
As Samson travels with his parents, a young lion attacks him in the vineyard—he tears it apart with his bare hands, empowered by the Spirit of God. It is a moment of greatness, yet it produces no praise, no worship, no testimony. Days later he finds honey in the carcass—sweetness from what once threatened him. From this image his riddle is born:
“Out of the eater came something to eat; out of the strong came something sweet.”
But the secret remains his alone.
At the wedding feast, pride and play mix together. Thirty men surround him—yet not as friends. His riddle becomes a contest, and the atmosphere shifts into tension, pressure, and deceit. His bride, manipulated and threatened, coaxes the answer from him. He entrusts her with his secret—she betrays it. His victory becomes loss, not triumph.
The chapter ends with a man strong in power yet torn inside. Consumed by anger, he kills thirty men to repay the wager stolen from him. But instead of returning to his bride, he leaves. The relationship collapses, and she is given to another. The story closes not in joy, but in unresolved sorrow and fracture.
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📢 Message for us today
• Samson acts impulsively—but God works anyway.
• His calling is revealed in the defeat of the lion.
• The riddle shows that God can bring sweetness out of bitterness.
• Trust is broken—both human and spiritual.
• The chapter ends painfully and open-ended: strength alone is not enough when the heart remains unguarded.
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📢 Message for us today
Samson’s story teaches us:
✓ God can work through imperfect people.
He even uses our failures to move His purpose forward.
✓ Spiritual power cannot replace maturity of heart.
Gifts without character lead to loss, not blessing.
✓ Not every path that looks good is good for the soul.
What pleases the eyes can become a trap.
✓ Sweetness can come from the strong.
God can bring honey out of hardship—yet not without shaping us.
✓ True strength is found in obedience, not achievement.
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💬 Reflection
What decisions do I make based on what pleases my eyes—
and which decisions do I make because God desires them?
Samson could conquer a lion, but not his own heart.
God does not only want to give us power—He wants to give us guidance, wisdom, and inner clarity.
~~~~~ ⚖️ ~~~~~
📆 27 – 29 November 2025
📚 BELIEVE HIS PROPHETS
📖 Weekly Reading – Spirit of Prophecy
📘 Ellen White | Patriarchs and Prophets – Chapter 44
🔥 Crossing the Jordan | How God Leads His People – Through Water, Signs, and Obedience
🌐 Read online here
🟦 BLOG 1 – Grief and a New Beginning
🌅 A people without Moses – yet not abandoned
How Israel’s sorrow prepared the ground for Joshua’s calling
🔵 Introduction
After the death of Moses, a quiet shadow settles over the entire camp of Israel. For thirty days tears flow, memories awaken, and the people realize what a treasure they had in their leader. Yet in the midst of grief, God is already opening a new path.
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🟡 Commentary
The news had swept through the camp like a shock: Moses has gone home.
For a whole month Israel wept — not with bitter despair, but with heartfelt gratitude. Only now did they truly understand who Moses had been to them: a father, an intercessor, a teacher, a tireless man of prayer.
His words — so often only half heard — now echoed within their hearts. Like the golden glow that still lights the mountains long after the sun has set, Moses’ life shone even brighter in their memory. He was gone — yet his influence remained alive.
And still, Israel was not alone. Over the sanctuary the cloud and pillar of fire stood as always — God’s silent assurance: “I am still here. I will continue with you.”
Now every eye turned to Joshua — the quiet servant of Moses, the faithful warrior, the man who never wavered. Joshua himself saw the task before him and trembled — a great nation to lead, a foreign land ahead, fortified cities, enemies everywhere.
But God approached him — not with gentle comfort, but with royal certainty:
“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.”
And suddenly fear melted like fog in sunlight. Joshua breathed deeply — God would lead. The grief over Moses began to transform into new courage.
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🟢 Summary
Israel mourns Moses, recognizes his true value — and at the same time experiences God’s promise that His presence remains. Joshua is called as the new leader.
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📢 Message for us today
When people leave, God stays.
And in seasons of loss, He often begins opening a new path.
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💬 Reflection
Which “lost voice” in your life might God be preparing to replace with new guidance today?
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LuxVerbi | The light of the Word. The clarity of faith.
