PODCAST
Finding Self-Control
November 20th, 2016
Titus 2:1-8
The woman in my office cried, “But I don’t have any self-control. Somehow, I missed getting that fruit of the Spirit.” I flipped open my Bible to Galatians 5: “But you’ll notice the fruit of the Spirit is singular, not plural. It’s ‘fruit,’ not ‘fruits.’ We have the entire package, ‘the fruit,’ and that includes self-control.”
“So why do I have such a hard time keeping myself under control?”
Paul instructs the early Christians how to practice self-control–by actively changing their behaviors.
We don’t just wake up one morning and discover self-control. It’s a tool we have, a piece of the spiritual fruit package that grows in us as we employ the behaviors of discipline. It’s a constant working out the pattern of asking God for strength, placing our trust in God’s power, then proactively training our behaviors.
And the more we act correctly, the more we trust God to strengthen us from within, the closer we’ll come to conquering ourselves and living controlled lives.
Author: Rebecca Thesman
