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

“I couldn’t help myself.” Really? “She made me do it.” Seriously? “The devil made me do it!” Not hardly, Flip Wilson. These are just a few of the excuses we make when we don’t exert the self-control given to us as followers of Christ. I’m sure that you, like me, could list many excuses made over our lifetime for our sins and failures. What we need to acknowledge is the precious gift that we have been given by the Spirit, self-control.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, “we all love control.” We would like control of our health, our families, our jobs, the weather, and any other circumstance outside of us. God didn’t give us CONTROL! He gave us SELF-CONTROL! Our problem is that we spend so much time trying to control what is happening around us that we ignore what we actually need to be controlling.  This can be exhausting. We may use manipulation, anger, or our power to control what is not ours to control. Of course, we say we believe God is sovereign, but do we live like we believe it? Most of the time, I would say we don’t. Our pride leads us to believe that we have a better way for things to go and we push to make it happen. The challenge is to learn how to exert the gift of self-control and trust in God’s sovereign plan for us.

The rub is that we can’t be self-controlled in our own power! Did you read that right? Yes, because if we could do this on our own power, then we wouldn’t need the gift. The Lord knew we needed the gift because our flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41) We have this gift and we need to open it to put it into practice.

How do we open the gift? We need to realize the following:

1. Self-control is not for our benefit but for the glory of God. This gift is one in which we honor God and others. It’s not about us. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
2. This gift comes with the power of the Holy Spirit to withstand temptations and choose God’s way. It is not about exerting our willpower, which WILL fail, but recognizing we need the Spirit’s power to live God’s way. We need to live by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)
3. We need to practice self-control by thinking of it as self-responsibility. We are responsible to know what God teaches concerning what a follower of Christ looks like. Then we are to live it out with His help. We can only know if we study the Word!  (2 Timothy 2:15)

Our hearts should overflow with gratitude for this gift of self-control. Taking the time to thank God for this gift will help us to recognize our need of his power in order to carry it out. May God give us grace to live our lives in a self-controlled way for His Glory!

“I couldn’t help myself.” Really? “She made me do it.” Seriously? “The devil made me do it!” Not hardly, Flip Wilson. These are just a few of the excuses we make when we don’t exert the self-control given to us as followers of Christ. I’m sure that you, like me, could list many excuses made over our lifetime for our sins and failures. What we need to acknowledge is the precious gift that we have been given by the Spirit, self-control.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, “we all love control.” We would like control of our health, our families, our jobs, the weather, and any other circumstance outside of us. God didn’t give us CONTROL! He gave us SELF-CONTROL! Our problem is that we spend so much time trying to control what is happening around us that we ignore what we actually need to be controlling.  This can be exhausting. We may use manipulation, anger, or our power to control what is not ours to control. Of course, we say we believe God is sovereign, but do we live like we believe it? Most of the time, I would say we don’t. Our pride leads us to believe that we have a better way for things to go and we push to make it happen. The challenge is to learn how to exert the gift of self-control and trust in God’s sovereign plan for us.

The rub is that we can’t be self-controlled in our own power! Did you read that right? Yes, because if we could do this on our own power, then we wouldn’t need the gift. The Lord knew we needed the gift because our flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41) We have this gift and we need to open it to put it into practice.

How do we open the gift? We need to realize the following:

1. Self-control is not for our benefit but for the glory of God. This gift is one in which we honor God and others. It’s not about us. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
2. This gift comes with the power of the Holy Spirit to withstand temptations and choose God’s way. It is not about exerting our willpower, which WILL fail, but recognizing we need the Spirit’s power to live God’s way. We need to live by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)
3. We need to practice self-control by thinking of it as self-responsibility. We are responsible to know what God teaches concerning what a follower of Christ looks like. Then we are to live it out with His help. We can only know if we study the Word!  (2 Timothy 2:15)

Our hearts should overflow with gratitude for this gift of self-control. Taking the time to thank God for this gift will help us to recognize our need of his power in order to carry it out. May God give us grace to live our lives in a self-controlled way for His Glory!