Last Monday’s post on holiness addressed our responsibility to be holy as the Lord is faithful to help us escape temptations. One of the values that helps us to be holy is self-control.

Self-control is in the fruit of the Spirit list in Galatians 5:22-23. The expectation is that we are to gain mastery over ourselves. Jesus commanded something similar in his invitation to discipleship.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Matthew 16:24

Self-control and self-denial are key spiritual disciplines that followers of Jesus must exercise. Exercise is a good word here. I’ve run for exercise and recreation most of my adult life. My oldest son is now running cross country for school. It takes discipline, self-denial, and self-control to get up early, make long runs, and build tempo to get faster as a runner.

As a value, self-control partners well with the other values to help us follow Jesus and pursue holiness.

The Self-Control Motto: We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone. 

Self-control doesn’t save us, nor does it make us holy. Only God can save us and only God can sanctify us and make us holy. Our part in salvation is the faith alone part of the motto. But genuine faith is never alone. The faith that saves is also the faith that obeys.

Let me illustrate. Exercise and training don’t enable us to run. Movement, walking, and running are gifts of the body from God himself. If we exercise or use the privilege of running, we’ll strengthen muscles and gain health. Self-control operates similarly with our Christian faith.

One self-control practice is fasting. Biblically, proper fasting is abstaining from food or water (generally food) for a set period of time. When we fast, we are exercising spiritual muscles of self-control. Not surprisingly, fasting is a means of strengthening self-control in ways that will help us combat besetting sins and temptations.

Last Monday’s post and this one are interconnected. To be holy and escape temptation we sometimes over focus on the temptation or the struggle. It weighs on us. We pray on it or pray about it. Instead what we should do is escape the temptation by redirecting or refocusing our thoughts and minds on what is good, pure, and holy.

Over the years I’ve had numerous conversations with men about their struggles with pornography. Nearly every man I’ve ever talked to with any depth has admitted struggles with lust. Contemporary culture’s inundation with screens and fixation on images has increased the opportunities and temptations to lust and pornography. I’ve counseled men broken by their sinfulness, so broken they have a difficult time seeing the means of escape that God has provided. Our focus on the sin and the struggle in some ways keeps us shackled by it. The means of escape, the path to holiness, and self-control intersect at the gospel of grace.

To address these besetting sins and practice self-control, we must begin with confession and repentance. Admission of sin and guilt is the first step to freedom. Next, we receive the forgiveness offered through the gospel. (From the motto: we’re saved by faith alone/forgiven by grace alone). After confession and forgiveness, we must learn to practice self-control. Self-control here is both negative and positive.

Negatively, self-control leads us to cut temptations out of our lives. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount to cut out our eyes and cut off our hands if they caused us to sin (Matthew 5:29-30). Jesus’ command was not literal. He is teaching that we ought to cut out whatever is causing us to sin. I’ve counseled guys to cut off internet access, get a flip phone, or cancel cable tv.

Positively, self-control leads us to embed practices and habits that replace temptations and sins. Just like getting faster as a runner requires the discipline of exercise, moving toward holiness requires the disciplines of self-control.

The gospel that saves is not a gospel without effort. Our efforts are not to earn our salvation but rather to participate in our sanctification. We work from our salvation, not for our salvation.

These Meditation takeaways are also self-control exercises:

• Read, meditate, and pray on Matthew 5:27-30, Galatians 5:22-23, and Matthew 16:24. These verses help us understand what self-control and self-denial should look like in our lives.
• Confess and repent of any besetting sins in your life. Like last week’s post, confession and repentance are necessary gospel practices in our lives. See 1 John 1:9.
• Exercise self-control by fasting. Choose to fast for a meal or for a 24 hour period. During the meal-time, commit to read the Bible and pray. Especially if you’re struggling with a besetting sin, fasting can serve as a means of overcoming sins.
• Make your bed. Finish some tasks. Self-control grows as we build habits that exercise discipline. Admiral William McRaven wrote a book entitled Make Your Bed where the retired Navy Seal highlighted lessons learned by overcoming challenges. For deeper reflection, read the book.
• Invest in your relationship with Christ. Finally, and most importantly, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants to bear his fruit through us. The closer we get to Christ and the more the Holy Spirit works in and through us, the more he will help us to look like Christ by making us loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle, faithful, and self-controlled (Galatians 5:22-23).

Photo by Caleb Gregory on Unsplash