“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV)
Sometimes, we joke about the sin of gluttony during church dinners or around the holidays as we enjoy some very tasty foods and indulge in portion sizes we would not normally eat. Maybe you look forward to loading up on Turkey and all the trimmings at Thanksgiving or Mom’s frosted sugar cookies at Christmas time. There are certain times of the year that in the American culture we cook for hours and enjoy delectable meals with family and friends. To my shame, my favorite foods are available at every holiday and to make it worse, any time during the year. I confess to you now that my greatest food weakness is a bag of rippled potato chips alongside my favorite brand of French onion dip. I have watched TV alone with a bag of chips beside me and 30 minutes later wonder how all the chips disappeared. I don’t think I am alone in this because the slogan for Lay’s potato chips used to be “Betcha can’t eat just one”. I have concluded that I have very little self-control around chips! I must stay away from the bowl of chips and only buy them for a special occasion. Self-control in our spiritual lives can be very similar. We may need to stay away from certain things, places or even people to protect ourselves from giving into a weak area of our lives.
The topic of self-control is a huge territory to think about. The above scenario is a little silly but quite honestly who wants to blurt out to the world what their sinful weaknesses are? Take a few moments to think about one area of your life that Jesus is telling you to have more self-control. If you don’t know right away, then ask the LORD to open your heart to hear how you can become closer to God. What sin area are you dealing with right now? Is it alcohol, smoking, swearing, watching dirty movies, sex outside marriage, wandering thoughts or violence? Or are you in the stage of your Christian life where the LORD is pointing out the subtler sin areas? Do you get easily sucked into gossip or think judgmentally about others? Does the computer have more of an appeal to you than reading your Bible or praying? The Holy Spirit is so kind to only convict us of our sin areas one or two areas at a time. If He showed us all the areas of our lives that need refinement I don’t think we could bear it. The great news is that God loves you so much that He wants to help you remove the barriers that keep you from living an effective and productive Christian life.
“For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep your from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our LORD Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.” (2 Peter 1: 5-9 NIV)
Here is a suggested prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your great love for me. I know you are a holy God and my unconfessed sin prevents me from being close to you. Please forgive me for the sin of ________. Help me to have self-control in this area of my life. Please give me wisdom and open my eyes to see the ways You want me to work on this. I can’t do it in my own strength and I need you Jesus to lead, guide and encourage me. Amen.
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