Self-control.. It is a very personal subject. All of us have areas where we lack in controlling our habits, attitudes, and appetites..
Felix did. Paul was in Felix’s jail, and Felix considered him an interesting way to spend an afternoon, so he sent for him in order to listen to him again. But Paul’s conversation got a bit personal. “Paul continued to insist on right relations with God and His people, about a life of moral discipline and the coming judgment.” (Acts 24: 25 The Message)
Paul was talking about living life by God’s rulebook. He was getting too personal, you see, Felix had no control of self. He had met a woman he wanted, and took her…even though she was another man’s wife. Felix saw no problem with doing whatever he felt like doing and whatever he was big enough to do.
I feel sure he felt good about that….I’m sure he thought he was a big bad guy, very strong and powerful. But he couldn’t even master himself.
Today, we are the same. How often we are deceived by the enemy!! Strength is NOT displayed by doing whatever we feel like doing. Strength is displayed in self-control. And the opposite of that….? No control of self displays a weak and vulnerable area. How will we ever be able to defeat the enemy when we can’t defeat our own fleshly impulses?
Self control is in one of those lists in the Bible. “…make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge, self control….”(2Peter 1:5)
I think of it as bricks in the wall of my temple. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God?”(1 Cor.6:19)
God has given a ‘measure of faith’ (Romans 12:3) The seed of faith must be planted, nurtured, and acted upon…and it grows. (Luke 17:6, 13:19) If it is not…it does not grow, and even perhaps dies. (James 2:14-17)
The brick added to faith is goodness or virtue. The word in the original language is ‘arete’ and it denotes an attribute of excellence, what in a moral sense gives man his worth, goodness of action. The next brick is knowledge, the participation in becoming aware and comprehending about something.
So we have this bit of faith, we build on it by choosing ‘good’ over wrong/evil, then we make it our business to know what we need to know….and then this thing of self-control.
It is foundational. We can have the conviction of faith, we can have the information and knowledge…but if we don’t proceed to have the control over personal choices in behavior…the wall never gets any higher. Self-control is not optional. It is absolutely necessary….
