Bear Much Fruit: Self-Control

The notion of self-control suggests that our hearts are divided. As children of God, we are constantly battling against desires, responses, and impulses that should not be gratified. Every day of our lives is filled with choices. And every choice presents us with the opportunity to either honor the Lord or satisfy the flesh. Self-control is the ability to forsake these sinful inclinations.

The battle for self-control is fought in every area of our lives—from choosing what we eat, to how we respond in traffic. And while different aspects of our lives may be easier to “control” than others, nothing is exempt from the need of self-control. On a daily basis, we find ourselves mustering up the strength to suppress the desires of our flesh. But in the midst of the daily stresses and demands of life, our best intentions and greatest efforts often result in a jumbled mess of frustrations and failure. 

Grief only compounds these discouragements. You resolve to be patient with friends, family, and strangers who don’t understand the sorrow you feel, only to find yourself snapping at the first person to share an insensitive anecdote. You are determined to be joyful when friends announce their pregnancies or when you receive an invitation to a baby shower, but grief overcomes you, and instead you hole up by yourself angry, bitter, and jealous. At the end of the day, you are carrying around feelings of guilt and shame because you didn’t respond how you wanted to respond—how you willed yourself to respond.

This is because any attempt at being self-controlled by your own strength ends in defeat.

We have come to interpret the term “self-control” as a determination to exercise restraint, a resolve to do better and try harder, the tenacity to do what we ought to do and avoid what we shouldn’t even when it hurts. But dear one, self-control is not the fruit of our own efforts. It is a fruit of the Spirit. 

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
-Romans 8:13

By the Spirit.

Self-control results from being led by the Spirit. You can only yield self-control in your life when you choose to surrender control to the Spirit of God dwelling in you. When you are abiding in the vine, entrusting yourself to the power of Christ at work in you, you are relieved of the burden of trying to succeed on your own. You are able to to exercise self-control through His strength. So really, self-control isn’t about bringing your desires and impulses under your own control. It’s about bringing your desires under the control of Christ through His Spirit.

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
-2 Timothy 1:7

While bearing the fruit of self-control occurs when we are surrendered to the Spirit’s control, there is an element of self-control that does require our effort. Being reliant on the power of God to produce fruit in our lives does not mean we are passive bystanders. 

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
-2 Peter 1:5-8

Did you catch that? Make every effort! While we must be dependent on the Spirit for producing any fruit in our lives, we are also responsible for the choices we make. We must make every effort to glorify the Lord in our decisions, responses, and attitudes, knowing that we are only able to accomplish any good thing through the power of God at work in our lives. The difference between exercising self-control on our own strength and being self-controlled through Christ’s strength is this: when we try to control our desires on our own, any victory is attributed to ourselves, and when we exercise control through the Spirit, recognizing that we can do no good thing on our own, it is God who is glorified.

Sweet sister, may I take this one step further? In the passage above, Peter calls our attention to a key element of self-control: faith. The fight for self-control revolves around wrong desires and impulses in our lives. But when we truly recognize the grace of God that was bestowed on us through Christ, the pull of those sinful desires is weakened. The war of self-control is fought on the battleground of faith. 

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.”
-Titus 2:11-14

God’s grace teaches us to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” and to live with self-control.  When you sincerely and absolutely believe in the goodness and grace of God in your life, everything else becomes trivial. Your faith in Jesus Christ is what ignites the power of the Spirit in you, enabling you to live “self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.” 

Do you want a fresh stirring of the Spirit in your life? Saturate yourself in the grace of God. Do you want sin’s hold on your heart to be broken? Humble yourself at the foot of the cross where sin and death were defeated as the Son of Man bore the wrath of God in your place. Do you want to bear the fruit of self-control? Then entrust yourself into the hands of the One who enables you to “abound in every good work.” 

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
-2 Corinthians 9:8

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Ashlee is the Editorial Coordinator for Hope Mommies and author of I AM (Hope Mommies, 2017) and Identity (Hope Mommies, 2018). She and her husband, Jesse, live in Milwaukee with their children—five on earth and two in heaven.

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