The Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control

Galatians 5:22-23

Did you know that it is believed President Zachary Taylor died from eating cherries? I knew I did not like those things for a reason. All jokes aside, Taylor ate a lot of fruit, including way too many cherries, and drank ice milk. It is believed that this gave him food poisoning that he never recovered from. In an attempt to keep from getting dehydrated from the heat, he overindulged and died from severe dehydration caused by cholera. He may have avoided both problems had he shown some restraint.

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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

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The final fruit of the Spirit is "self-control". This is a single fruit with dozens of applications. The easy one to pick on is eating because we do not feel like anyone gets hurt (except maybe the stomach ache from that 3rd piece of fried chicken and the two pieces of cake at the church social). Because we do not see heart disease developing, and it is not instantaneous, we think no one is being harmed. The truth is, we are, and eventually our family may be hurt, by our premature passing away or by the burden of having to care for us because of our life choices.

Americans indulge in all kinds of things. Food, alcohol, entertainment (binge watching), shopping, and any number of other activities we could list. Again we feel like these things are harmless, so why worry about showing restraint. We waste years of our life doing meaningless activities. Then, we will wake up one day and wonder, "Where did my life go?"

Another area we often neglect to show self-control is with our tempers. We want others to be patient with us, but then we lose our tempers with them. I am guilty of this as well. We shrug it off by saying, "I'm just a hot head. They know that. It is expected". In reality, it is unacceptable and not something we should shrug off. We need to ask God to help us have self-control in regards to our tempers. The older I get, the less amusing the anecdotes of me losing my temper seem to me.

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A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back.

Proverbs 29:11

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As we walk in the Spirit, God will reveal different areas of our lives in which we are not giving Him control. We indulge in some form of excess, and He wants us to surrender control. It is in surrender to God that our passions and desires are controlled. He gives us the power to show restraint, instead of giving in to the desire. It is in the surrender that we look and sound like Jesus. It is in the surrender that our lives are changed and the world sees "Christ in you the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

Father, help us to learn self-control. Help us to surrender to You so that we do not give in to our passions and lusts. May we learn to be like You so that the world sees You in us, and they want to know what is the reason for the hope that is in us, and we can give the answer (I Peter 3:15).