When my brothers and I were kids, one of our favorite treats was my mom’s made-from-scratch brownies. Actually, our favorite treat was the brownie batter before she baked them; we always fought over who was gonna lick the bowl, who was gonna lick the spoon, and who was gonna be tough out of luck. Every once in a while, the boys and I would be left alone in the house while mom and dad went to town, and we would mix up a batch of brownie batter and eat it. . . the entire bowl, just us three kids, three spoons and ooey-gooey chocolate goodness.

One time our parents left us for most of the day, leaving a 13-year-old Jana in charge of wrangling two ornery little brothers. After finishing up our chores I made the executive decision that we each needed our own individual bowls of brownie batter. If a little bit licked off the spoon was good, and a bowl shared between the three of us was better, then surely an entire bowl of brownie batter all to ourselves was best!

An hour, three bowls of batter, and three incredibly upset tummies later, we learned the valuable lesson of self-control and why our mother would always tell us that too much of a good thing is sometimes painful.

I don’t think it’s an accident that the attribute of “self-control” comes at the end of the list of these attributes of the fruit we receive from the Holy Spirit. Exercising self-control helps in practicing each of the other eight qualities – as we learn how to control the appetites and selfish desires of our flesh, we can show more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness to others. 

I began studying the Fruit of the Spirit back in January when I chose to focus on each of the aspects of the Spirit’s fruit instead of picking a New Years resolution this year (which you can find here: https://rusticandredeemed.com/living-by-the-fruit-of-the-spirit/).

I wrote at the beginning of 2021, “I discovered that walking by the Spirit and not the flesh is basically what a New Year’s Resolution means to me. . . giving up anything that fulfills the lust of the flesh and being resolute in doing what keeps me walking in God’s Spirit.” 

Coming to the end of this series only reinforces that truth! 

I don’t know about you, but there are so many areas in my life where I struggle with self-control; I desire to have better restraint, but each time I try to practice self-control in my own strength, I fail. My own experience is that making New Years Resolutions, giving things up, writing down new goals in fancy planners, willpower, shame, anger, resignation have all brought about short-term change of some kind, but none of it has resulted in anything long-term and lasting. 

This failure to consistently practice self-control leads to discouragement, I become stagnant and resigned to the idea that I just am who I am, and that’s going to have to be good enough. I become too comfortable with the results of poor choices, habits, and mindsets. I become stubborn, lazy, apathetic, and proud in my lack of restraint.

But these past five months of digging deep into God’s Word and understanding what He works into my life has shown me that God is not content to leave us where we are. He desires to mold, shape, and grow us; He wants more for you and me than resignation and complacency. His plan is to take us from that old nature that lives by the desires of our flesh and make us more like Jesus. And He accomplishes this by giving us the fruit of His Spirit, knowing that we can’t change bad habits and old mindsets in our own strength. We need His fruit in our lives in order to be more like Him.

Living by the fruit of His Spirit all culminates with this very last aspect. CONTROL OF MYSELF. The interesting thing is that it isn’t actually a matter of taking control of myself, but rather it’s about giving up and submitting to the Spirit’s control in my life. Practicing self-control from a worldly standpoint, “the ability to control oneself,” is about practicing restraint and willpower in my own strength – and my own strength ain’t that strong! It fails and disappoints me time and time again.

The world encourages me to exercise self-control for the purpose of shining the light on my own glory and goodness.

The Spirit helps me practice self-control for the purpose of shining a light on God’s glory and goodness, not mine. 

By moderating our passions, we are better able to serve God and others. This virtue keeps our eyes fixed on Jesus, focusing on Him when we are tempted to give in to sin. We don’t abstain from certain things to show the strength of our own willpower and self-discipline; it’s not about our ability to control ourselves. It’s about our choosing to hand control over to the Holy Spirit.

Biblical self-control comes from the Greek word, egkrateia, derived from the words, en, meaning “in,” and kratos, meaning “strength” or “power.” Self-control is also referred to as “temperance” in some translations. The Strong’s Concordance defines it as  “the virtue of one who masters his desire and passions. meaning self-restraint or moderation.” It comes from the root word, “egkratēs,” meaning “strong, robust, having power over, possessed of (a thing), mastering, controlling, curbing, restraining, controlling one’s self, temperate, continent.” (From the Strong’s concordance, Blue letter Bible G1722 and G2904). 

Self-control that the Spirit gives us is the power that we have over evil or sinful desires in our lives, instead of allowing those passions to control us. But it’s power given to us by the Spirit, not something we dig deep down inside ourselves to find. It’s the intentional choosing to be temperate, moderate, and self-controlled in the way we live and the decisions we make. It’s submitting to the Spirit to help us in controlling our behavior, temper, and emotions. 

“ I am a spiritual being… After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. I refuse to let what will rot rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ.”

Max Lucado

This last aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit helps me as I fight the temptation to sin and keeps me from falling into the trap of “overs.” I tend to overeat, overdrink, overspend, overstep, overspeak, overwork, oversleep, overthink, overreact, and overdo. Throughout life we learn that life is about balance, and without the Holy Spirit working the fruit of self-control in me, my balance becomes way out of alignment! 

Some of the “overs” I have to watch out for in my life aren’t “bad” things in and of themselves: 

Eating is essential to survival 

Spending money is an unavoidable part of life

Work is necessary for the provision & security of my family & to fulfill God’s call in my life

Sleep & rest is required if I want to function properly

Thinking and speaking is an inevitable part of being human

Activities are a fulfilling part of the life experience

Reading a book or something online is a great way to pass the time and grow in knowledge

Social media is beneficial to my work as a writer and also my call to disciple

Anger at evil and injustice is needed to fight the enemy

The key is to maintain moderation and balance in anything we do in life. Any of the things listed above can quickly move from a good thing to a bad habit over time if we don’t practice self-control. And before we know it, those bad habits become destructive lifestyles that are harder and harder to escape from. 

The Word tells us that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (1 Timothy 1:7 ESV). He works to change me one day at a time, one choice at a time, one step of obedience at a time. With each decision I make to walk forward in obedience and choose self-control instead of giving in to temptation and indulgence, He makes me more like Him. 

Choosing to live a life of self-control means that I am reflecting Jesus’ image to a world that is desperate to make sense of what feels completely out of control.

And the world does seem to be more and more unstable and out-of-hand. We can see that when we let our desires and passions have any authority over us our lives will quickly spiral out of control. But God calls us to live differently, to live as His chosen and beloved children who practice control and restraint. Living a life of self-control sets us apart as Believers in Christ. We live in the world but not of it, and as we daily practice self-control we allow the Spirit to lead us in making decisions of obedience in the small and seemingly inconsequential, as well as the more significant aspects of our days. 

The more we exercise self-control, the easier it becomes as restraint matures and grows us. It doesn’t bring us glory, but it brings glory to a risen Savior that conquers the evil desires of our flesh and gives us victory as we practice better habits, mindsets, and attitudes. 

2 Peter 1:5-7 (NKJV) tells us, “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,  to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.”

God wants to develop His character in us. Christ’s Spirit leads us as we make decisions of obedience in the seemingly simple and superficial aspects of our day as well as in the more significant ones. As we continually walk in obedience to Him we will begin developing self-control in all areas of our lives.

God has given us everything for life and godliness through the knowledge of who He is, (1 Peter 2:3); because of this knowledge we can recognize that we are able to practice self-control because our “self” will actually be controlled by the Spirit and not by our flesh! 

That means that, among other things, He gives me the self-control to make a batch of brownies and just lick the spoon. . . not eat the whole bowl!!