Hey ya’ll. We are finishing up our series on the Fruits of the Spirit today. I’m so excited. It has taken me a long time to finish this, but we are finishing it. Also, this will be the first series that I have ever finished in my time blogging. I have really struggled with this one because I really struggle with self-control. What is self-control? It’s the ability to walk away from temptation. But, temptation is hard. There are so many areas that we are tempted. Temptation is the reason that we are separated from God in the first place. Adam and Eve were tempted. They were tempted by the thought of being like God. Being gods themselves. You can find temptation all around. Sex, drugs, alcohol are obvious ones. But what about, anger, control, emotions, food? I could go on and on. How do we fight temptation? Jesus models that too just like all the other fruits. In Matthew 4:1-11 we see Jesus being tempted in the wilderness.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
The devil tries to get him to fall into temptation and Jesus fights every attempt with the word of God. That is where self-control comes from: knowing the word and using it to fight the temptations. Jesus comes back at everything the devil says with what the word says instead.
Devil: You hungry? Make bread.
Jesus: The Bible says…man doesn’t live just from food but by the words of God.
Devil: You could jump off this cliff and nothing will happen to you because, The Bible says…the angels will take care of you.
Jesus: The Bible says…don’t tempt God.
Devil: If you bow down and worship me, I’ll give you the world.
Jesus: Go away! The Bible says…Worship and serve only God.
We have to know what the word says. We have to commit it to memory and set it in our hearts. Because guess who else knows what the Bible says? Yep, the Devil. He knows what the Bible says and if we only know enough to get by, he will use what we don’t know to hurt us. We have to know what’s in that book and what our Father has said.
But, it’s not just the Devil working against us that we need self-control for. We need it for ourselves. Temptation isn’t just from outside sources. WE are more than capable of tempting ourselves. James says in 1:13-15 that we are the source of our own temptation.
James 1:13-15
“When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown gives birth to death.”
We bring these temptations into our own lives sometimes. I so struggle with eating well. But, I’m not out and about seeing commercials and ads for bad food. I don’t leave my house and get fast food all that often. So how do I tempt myself? I do the grocery pick up order sometimes, and I go ahead and add snacks for mommy. Things no one else knows about. And then I put them away, and eat them by myself later. I tempt myself by bringing it into my house to begin with. My desire for food I shouldn’t have drags me away from what I know is right. When I give into that desire I then have given birth to sin in my life. I’m lying, sneaking around, and hurting my own health. And as that sin grows and I allow it to happen more and more, I bring death to myself. Either through a black heart full of deceit and greed, or through actual physical death because I’m not taking care of myself.
Temptation is hard…did I mention that before? That’s why we need self-control that comes from knowing and speaking the word into our lives every day. Multiple times a day if we need to.
Self-control isn’t just about not doing what’s wrong but also about doing what’s right when it’s hard. Jesus shows great self-control at the cross. He could have gotten off of there at any time he wanted to. Jesus was God incarnate on Earth. He could have shown his power and gotten down off of that cross.
But he didn’t.
He showed his self-control to follow the Father’s plan to bring us back to him.
Hanging there on that cross Jesus was the embodiment of the fruit of the spirit. All of it: a gift, hanging on a tree, for us to come and take so that we might be a part of the family of God.
Jesus’ self-control was for us. The longer he waited the more people would believe. The longer the father waits to send him back the more souls we can help to save.
So, to bear self- control we have to go to the word and fight whatever the temptation is. Food, drugs, alcohol, sexual immorality, discord, envy. We can fight all of those things with the word.
And, we fight with other souls in mind. We fight the temptations so that our testimony of the power of the Jesus in our lives might be as strong as possible.
The Fruit of the spirit is honestly not about us. I think that’s where we get this Christian life a little mixed up. God blesses us to bless other people. We have to look outside of ourselves in order to do the will of God. His will is that through sending us the Holy Spirit we might show his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control to a world that does not know him so that they might be saved. My prayer for us all is that we may bear much good fruit.
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