Self-Control

Self-Control

Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Sunday, for our group devotionals, we are all sharing about a fruit of the Spirit.  I was randomly selected to do a devo on the topic of self-control. Truth be told, I didn’t know what I was going to share about it, only because I thought it was pretty straight forward. But, the more I looked into it, the more God opened my eyes to see it in a whole new light.

I was talking with my overseer about it and she said that self-control isn’t about simply giving something up for a short time but it’s putting it in the Lord’s hands and not expect to get it back. I have never thought about that before. Sometimes, the things what we are taking a break from are the things that are separating us from truly seeing Gods face. The definition of self-control is the discipline given by the Holy Spirit that slows Christians to resist the power of the flesh. So to have true self control, we have to get it from the Holy Spirit.  Now, if we want self-control that means we have to give it to God and He alone gives us the discipline to resist the flesh. Discipline means training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental state or moral character. The key word here is training. Training for anything is not easy, it talks a lot of time, effort, and discipline; and depending on what you are training for it, can be physically or mentally difficult. Self-control can be really hard depending on what you are trying to restrain yourself from. Control goes against everything the flesh wants. That’s why it is so hard, but when we have the end goal in mind it makes it all bearable. To give up everything is to gain Christ in the end.

In 2 Timothy 1:3-9 it says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” This is why we do what we do! This is why we go through the training, so that in the end we can receive eternal life with Christ Jesus our Lord. Self-control is a necessity to live a life pleasing to God. And we must practice discipline so that we don’t lose sight of our end goal.

Application:

I am going to give up cookies for the rest of the week.

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