Don’t Despise Your True Identity

Scripture Reading: Judges 16:17, 20–21

“So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, ‘A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man.’ … She said, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ And he awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him. Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains, and he was a grinder in the prison.”

Strength Misunderstood

Samson didn’t lose his strength simply because Delilah cut his hair. The haircut wasn’t magical; it was symbolic. His power didn’t flow from the strands themselves, but from what they represented — his God-given true identity as a Nazarite (God’s devoted one) set apart from birth. Samson‘s God-given true identity was “God’s devoted one”. Even though he fought it his entire life. When Samson treated that identity lightly, he opened the door to weakness.

God had called him. God had empowered him. Yet Samson’s casual disregard of what God had entrusted to him became his undoing.

The Tragedy of Lost Vision

After his betrayal, the Philistines gouged out his eyes and led him in chains back to Gaza. The irony is piercing: Gaza was the very city where Samson had once displayed God’s power by carrying off its gates… carrying them on his back 40 miles to the mountains of Hebron. Now he was dragged back blind and powerless, grinding grain in a prison.

What a picture of what happens when we despise the identity God has given us. When we trade away His calling for temporary pleasure or comfort, we risk losing not just strength but vision — the ability to see where we are going, the ability to live with purpose.

Guarding Your True Identity

The warning of Samson’s fall is timeless: don’t despise your God-given true identity. You were chosen, set apart, and designed with purpose from the very beginning. The enemy’s strategy is often subtle — temptations to compromise, distractions that erode focus, small bargains that seem harmless which attempt to chip away at who you truly are in Christ.

Samson’s story urges us: don’t trade away eternal identity for temporary satisfaction. Don’t let loss of vision or momentary weakness define you. Your calling is too important.

A Final Thought

Even in Samson’s story, grace was not absent. His hair began to grow again. His calling was not erased. And God, in mercy, gave him one last victory.

Take heart: even if you’ve stumbled, even if you feel chained or blinded, your true identity in God is not gone. Each morning, ask God if you have allowed anything in your heart from the previous day which is not from Him?  Fear… Doubt… Unbelief… anything causing you to forget who He calls you.

Haven’t discovered, yet, who He calls you?  Discovered your true identity?  He has a name he has chosen just for you and He wants you to know who He calls you. Check out wildmenlife.com/trueidentity to discover your true identity.