Sustaining Self-Control
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23) "For what I am doing, I do not practice, what I hate, that I do." (Romans 7:15)
The battle of not giving in to our fleshly desires, is a strong challenge indeed. This one fruit of the Spirit the apostle Paul names as self-control, is a hard one to sustain. I am not going to name the various vices to which man-kind becomes enslaved to; you know what you personally deal with. There are those vices that find their way into addictions, such as; the use of alcohol and drugs, the viewing of pornography, the activity of gambling, and over-eating, and several more.
But the question of this post-article is:
"How can we sustain the fruit of the Spirit: Self-control? There are three things we must seek, if we are to sustain self-control.
1. We are to seek a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ
"But indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ." (Philippians 3:8) When Jesus becomes first place in our lives, that is when we will begin to sustain self-control in our lives. When we look at our own selfish fleshly desires as rubbish, compared to the desire to know all about the Lord Jesus, and His love, and His will for our lives; that is when we will allow the Holy Spirit to have control in our lives.
And if it takes answering the question over and over again: What would Jesus have us to do? Than so be it!
2. We are to seek a knowledge of ourselves.
"Let us search out and examine our ways. And turn back to the Lord." (Lamentations 3:40) We must do as James tells us in James 1:23-24, "for if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was." When we look into the mirror of God's Word, we see what kind of people we are. We see our weaknesses, and the way our fleshly desires have led us down a path of sin and destruction. The perfect law of liberty will help us to see the changes we need to make.
3. We are to seek a knowledge of the consequences of our sinful thoughts and actions.
"....just as I told you in time past, those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God."(Galatians 5:21b) In the passage of Scripture prior to Paul's words here, he lists a number of sinful activities that come from walking according to the flesh.(5:19-21)
If we continually do these things, the consequence is to not inherit all of God's blessings contained in His kingdom. In other words, we will not have the hope of heaven, but we will have the reality of hell. Is this what we want? I would not think so! And if this is not enough to frighten us concerning our eternal future, I don't know what will?
Just like sustaining the other fruit of the Spirit, it takes discipline, and determination. It all begins with a right relationship with Jesus Christ. Do we have that today? If we don't, I pray that we will!
GP
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