Thursday: Self-Control
Read the following texts. What are they saying that can and should help us understand how people, rich or poor, can protect themselves from the dangers that greed, covetousness, and the love of money and material things can present to the Christian?
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These texts are so rich and filled with a lot of divine injunction regarding how we should live. But notice one common thread: self-control. This trait can be particularly difficult when it comes to greed, covetousness, and the desire to own things. Only through self-control, first of our thoughts and then our actions, can we be protected from the dangers of the things we have been talking about.
We can exercise that control only to the degree we give ourselves over to the power of the Lord. None of us, on our own, can defeat these sinful traits, especially if they have long been cultivated and cherished. We truly need the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit in our lives if we are to get victory over these powerful deceptions. “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13, NKJV).
Read again 2 Peter 1:5-9. What is the path that Peter points to? What are its steps, and how can we learn to follow them, especially in our struggle against greed and covetousness?
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To acquire self control, we have to surrender all to Him. Its hard but with Him there is nothing impossible.
If we believe in full surrender that we can do all things through Jesus Christ,
then all things are possible and we can overcome and control our worldly desire.
Self-Control? No!
Christ-Control! When we try to master self by self, we are doomed to fail. Let Christ control us and we are victors in this war!
Tichaona,
I understand what you are saying, but self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV
Christ-control rather than self-control resonates well in a Christian environment, but the issue at stake is that we need to know how to put that into practice. I hear a lot of "Jesus talk"; We need to let Jesus take control; we need to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit; we need to pray for God's guidance, and so on. At the end of the day though we need to go out into the world and live the meaning of those words.
You earn $1000. What do you spend it on? How much do you save? Who do you make donations to? Jesus does not slap your hand every time you open your wallet to take out some money to spend, give or save. So how does the Holy Spirit or Jesus speak to us and give us this Christ-centred control?
We also need to not take self-control to an extreme of not owning anything at all. Jesus told parables that without owning something a person really would not understand the true meaning of such a parable for example the parables of the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, and the lost coin, etc. And yes while these "treasures," represent the treasure of having Jesus in our hearts yet if one never owns anything at all, ever, how can we truly understand what owning Jesus really means?
The Holy Spirit works in our minds--with the brain nerves. He works to give us thoughts and feelings of God. These thoughts and feelings are just like the thoughts and feelings Jesus had as a human like us and are the reason Jesus could say in His humanity, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
He was also the only-begotten Son of God by virtue of His human birth, his Father being God; and, because His Father lived in Him and through Him by His Holy Spirit, He could truthfully say, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."
While we are not the only begotten of God, we can be in Him and He in us, by the same Holy Spirit that gave Jesus the thoughts and feelings of God in His humanity. He came in human flesh to be our example as to how we could have the Mind of God through the working of His Spirit also.
This is how we are adopted as sons and daughters of God and have His Character motivated by His Love.
Yes to control ourselves is easy thing but when we comes across to our daily lifestyle eeeeeh! I think when they control its habit will end nothing but remember God told Israel to move 4m foreign country to unknown land but they managed to because they did know their God. ?... today if we know our God to control ourselves will be a past thing to us.
Self control happened when you truly believe in God. Because that believe itself would widen your ways to heavenly kingdom of Jehovah tasks. Therefore we all need to kneel and ask almighty God to bless us with self-control as SDA family.