Don't you wish you had self-control?

Do you ever wish you had complete self-control?  I sure do!

I would be thin and prosperous and polite to a fault.  My house would be perfectly clean all the time, and my nails might even be done!

Alas.  I don’t have much of it sometimes.  I guess I have more now than I used to—that’s really a good thing!  But I still say inept things at awkward times, put off until tomorrow what I could do today, and eat things I  shouldn’t.  Do you have trouble with things like that, or am I the only one?

Here’s the Good News— God loves us just the way we are, and He will finish the good work He started in us.  Scripture says so:

Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ —Philippians 1:6

The Fruit of Self-Control is another gift He gives us and works into our souls.  That’s not to say it’s easy— quite to the contrary!  The King James called it “Temperance”.  Have you ever heard of “tempered steel”?   Sometimes in my life God has tempered me like they do with steel— in the fire.   Have you ever felt like you were being held to the flame during a trial?  Looking back now, you may be encouraged to see some growth in yourself.  That is how the Spirit works—in ways we often don’t see, with results we can’t explain.  He just leads the surrendered heart from “glory to glory” (II Corinthians 3:18).  We certainly can’t do it ourselves! The Flesh is a miserable failure at things like this.

But God will cause us to flourish in His kingdom.  He did everything for us to make that happen!  Take a look at Ezekial 36:26-27:

26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

This is the New Covenant!  We can't, but He can!

In Ephesians 4:26, Paul admonishes the people to “Be angry, but do not sin.”  

What?  Anger isn’t a sin?  Well… apparently not.  Anger is a natural emotion.  Sometimes it can even be righteous.  But sometimes it is a response that hijacks our emotions ... hence the warning.  

Think of a time when you were angry, but didn’t lash out.  You held your tongue, maybe counted to 10, walked away without a fight, and decided to address the subject when you could be more reasonable about it.

Hurray! THAT IS SELF-CONTROL!  

What stopped you?  What made you decide to defer the conversation until later?  Experience?  A lesson learned from an earlier mistake?  That is the Spirit speaking to you.  You heard Him and let His Spirit take the lead!  Congratulations!

As adults, we feel many things that we don’t act on.  Toddlers, not so much.  Hit, kick, bite, cry, yell—that’s normal for a little guy.  I remember a space on my elementary school report card where I actually got a grade in Self-Control.  Apparently it’s important to other people that I control myself, as well as to God.  We all hear from Him about this sooner or later so we can work through it with Him.

There are some extreme challenges to exercising self-control.  Some of them trip us up, maybe even take us down—addictions, difficult people, co-dependence, a hot temper we developed as a child.  We can bring those things to God as well, because He loves us just as we are.  He also wants the best for us and will help us get there when we bring Him our surrendered heart.  It doesn’t help to run away.  Remember Psalm 139?  He will be there when we arrive.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons said, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”

And N.T. Wright is quoted as saying,  “Being full of God doesn’t make you less human.  Because humans are made in God’s image, the more full of God you are, the more genuine a human being you are.”

And in Galatians 2:20, Paul said:  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.

Have you ever felt crucified? Boiled in oil?  Held to the flame?  Did you cry, like I did, to be released and given what you wanted?  Did it work?  Probably not.  It didn’t work with me, either.  But after it was all over, I had spent enough time contending with God that I felt a little more like Christ lived in me, a little more like my life belonged to Him, and that the life I lived was by the faith of the Son of God.  

Every day a little more, whether or not we can see it or feel it.  

And then one day, when you least expect it, someone will say something like this:  

“Gee, I wish I had as much peace/love/joy/patience/kindness/goodness/faithfulness/gentleness/self-control as you do…”

And you will smile, and God will wink back at you.

Psalm 1 (KJV)

1 Blessed is the man

Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the path of sinners,

Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

3 He shall be like a tree

Planted by the rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.

4 The ungodly are not so,

But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the ungodly shall perish.