I {written by Ken} didn’t realize until recently how much
God’s Word emphasizes self-control as a vital godly discipline. Sure I knew
that self-discipline was important, but this was the first time I went through
and tried to find every verse in the Bible as it related to this vital personal
discipline. I am in most respects a very disciplined person when it comes to my
work and my goals, but in other areas of life I do not keep my flesh under
control as well as I should. Is that not what self-control is really all about?
Telling one’s flesh “no” when what it wants to do, say, see or eat is not the
best for us? How many of you are like me and find yourselves at times settling
for “short term gain with long term pain” or “short term pleasure with long term
destruction?” Is this not a lack of self-control?
My three greatest weaknesses with
self-control are wanting to eat too much junk, wanting to watch too much junk,
and at times saying things that I should not have said, or in a way I should
not have said it. The reality is that each of these things is simply the
feeding of my flesh and fleshly desires. Don’t misunderstand as I am not some
zealot for perfection, nor do I want to sensor everything a Christian eats or watches
on TV. Each of us are at a different point in our journey with the Lord and you
are most welcome to your Big Mac and ice cream without feeling an ounce of
guilt if you can eat them in moderation and your main diet is healthy, natural
whole foods. If you saw what I eat with
my protein shakes and huge organic salads almost every day at home you might
laugh that I am even concerned about self-control in my eating. I am not a
total slob when it comes to self-control, but I do at times lack it, and need
to do a better job of saying “no” to self.
My greatest struggle with self-control
comes when I am traveling. I just got back from three weeks working in Europe
and if there is one thing I love it is French bread and pastries. To be honest,
I love almost everything about French food except for the various innards they
like to eat as delicacies. But give me a French hotel breakfast buffet and the
baked goods will be my undoing. One, two or three croissants and "pain au
chocolate" is not quite enough. Have you ever had one of those snail pastries or
one loaded with almond paste? If the flesh is not completely satisfied, you can
always make your own designer pastry with ten different jams and my favorite,
Nutella. And of course you have to get
your monies worth, and finish it all with a little discipline of eating some
prunes.
Then there is the French bread that is
bar none the best in the world. I can’t tell you how many different varieties I
experienced but why is it that the French can make bread taste so much better
than we do? Maybe it is because it is made fresh daily? So the first evening
with a client and friend we decided to have pizza, and of course in Europe you
each get your own. When it came out I exclaimed that it was huge and we should
have gotten one and not two, but when it was all over, only a few pieces of
crust remained. Wow it was good because it was on that French dough. So the
next night, we decided to display some self-control by not going out to eat.
Instead we bought one very long French baguette along with some toppings and watched
France lose to Brazil in soccer. The sausage slices turned to great cheeses and
then I finished up with the Nutella… one, slice, two slices, four slices of
bread covered with chocolate frosting. I am glad I do not live in France as I
might be the fattest Frenchman ever.
You get the point. I lack a certain
amount of self-control in my eating, and this same lack of self-control shows
up in some other areas of my life. Yet God tells me: “Every athlete exercises
self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we
an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the
air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching
to others I myself should be disqualified” {I Corinthians 9:25-27}. And 2 Peter 1:5 tells us we are to
supplement our faith with self-control. It seems that as a mature believer I
have all the fruit of the Spirit in my life, but at times, what is missing is
self-control and the ability to say “no” to the flesh, and "yes" to godliness.
It seems to
me that the church too often gives a free ride to the sin of a lack of
self-control. It’s tough for a pastor to preach on the subject when he knows that
what he is eating and watching are things he should not and he is snapping at
his spouse from time to time when stressed out. Think about the areas you lack
self-control and many times you cannot even see how often you give in to the
flesh because it is now a bad set of habits. If you want to really see how
often your flesh speaks for you instead of your spirit, ask your spouse to
catch you each time they see it and call you on it. Maybe in your toughest
areas of a lack of self-control, ask your spouse to hold you accountable.
I am on a
thirty day challenge to say “no” to the flesh and I have asked my spouse to
help me do so. If she sees my flesh speaking or acting in any way that is not
with self-control, I want her to catch me on it so I like Paul can discipline
myself and learn greater self-control. This may be a lifelong project, or it
may be learned in a month, or year, but regardless it is what God calls each of
us to be: Self-controlled in all areas of our lives, even the hidden areas of
what we eat, what we think and what we see in private.
In some
ways, most of us are addicted to certain fleshly desires even as our struggles
may be different. We think we can regularly get away with a lack of
self-control, but eventually it shows up in pain and destruction. A husband’s
struggle with what he looks at becomes an unfulfilling marriage bed. A wife’s
struggle with a lack of respect or control over her tongue results in pushing
her husband away and closing down any possibility of real intimacy. A father’s
snaps and angry outbursts results in angry and rebellious teenagers, and a
mom’s unwillingness to cook healthy and nutritious foods can lead to a myriad of
health problems and perhaps a whole family gradually becoming overweight. There
is no free lunch in life and most often “we reap what we sow.” So let’s sow the
seeds of self-control and self-discipline realizing that this is God’s call on
our lives to be at our best in all areas of life and godliness. Is this not
what He means when he calls us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no
provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” {Romans 13:14}. Ask your spouse to hold you accountable and let us honor the Spirit
that is within us, knowing that this is what pleases the Lord.
For God
gave us a spirit not of fear,
but of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7
