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Self-Control
Brian Mashburn
August 25, 2013
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Self-Control
After listing eight qualities that exist within the heart and life of the Holy Spirit filled person, Paul ends the list with a quality that is both a NECESSITY in order to have, and RESULT of having, the first eight.
Self-control.
One of the most amazing things about Jesus, in my estimation, is that he never reacts.
Never.
I'm not saying that he doesn't respond to certain circumstances in specific ways in order to address them. I'm just saying that Jesus never seems to have those knee-jerk, thoughtless, reflexive reactions that I so often have that I seem to have no control over.
Ask someone if they want to snap at their loved ones, and then ask them if they do, and you often get different answers.
Ask someone if they want to dislike or hate someone, and then ask them if they do, and you often get different answers.
Ask someone if they want to be selfish, materialistic, boastful, abusive, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, rash, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, and then ask them if they are, and you often get different answers.
Why? Why is it that so many of us do what it is we do not want to do, or be what it is we do not want to be? Ironically, I believe we lack self-control because we don't know how to acknowledge and trust God's control.
Let us end this series and this summer praying Paul's words, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." (Gal 5:25)