To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 4:3 “For this is the will of God . . .that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor”

From the moment we are born, the issue of self-control impacts our lives. A little baby wants what it wants, and it wants it now!  If a baby is hungry, it cries or even screams until it’s fed. If it wants to go to the potty, it doesn’t wait for its turn in the bathroom.  Thus begins the learning process of self-control. Little by little a child learns to control his or her natural desires. Why? Because the parent who is raising that child knows that there are better ways to act, both for the good of the child and for the good of other people in that child’s life. 

Spiritually, it’s the very same thing. As Paul writes to the Thessalonian believers, we have the perspective of a mature believer working to train immature, i.e., “baby” Christians. When a person begins his or her new life in Christ, they have so much to learn. It’s a process that begins at the moment the Holy Spirit enters our life, and it continues as this resident Teacher instructs us in the Way of Life.  It’s a process of learning not to do what comes naturally, but to do what pleases and glorifies God, for you see, the nature of any person that enters the world is a “fallen” nature. It’s marred by sin. It is a life controlled by ungodly lusts rather than godly love. But with the new birth comes a new nature. All things become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Now there is spiritual life, a life that will go on forever, but still there is that natural flesh, i.e., the natural body, which continues to be affected by the fall. That body still gets sick. That body still dies. And that body is still tempted to follow the old sinful nature. 

The Bible tells the believer that we are to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:16-17). And then we are taught the difference with these words: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:19-24).

Self-control: it’s a “fruit of the Spirit,” an evidence of a life made new by Christ.   A person that demonstrates this may have the same natural urges as an unbeliever, but now there are also new desires that are to be so much greater that the old desires are “crucified,” i.e., put to death.  Just like in a Christ-centered marriage where the husband is to always have the desires of his wife in mind rather than just his own, so a believer is to have the desires of His Lord in mind regarding how he uses his own body, rather than just his own.  The believer is to have self-control of his urges and passions because he has a love for His Savior that supersedes everything else. While there are the temptations to “do our own thing,” what should be controlling those temptations is a love for the right and godly thing.

May God give us as believers “self-control” as we grow in true Christian maturity and learn what it is to “control our own bodies” in the way of true “holiness and honor.”