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SELF CONTROL IS SOMETHING WE MASTER

I want to talk to you today about self-control, my second favorite topic in The Fruit of the Spirit, coming a close second behind patience. Of course that's some sarcasm at play here, but self-control, we all exercise it whether we're aware of it or not every day of our life. So how do we understand it and use it to our advantage? So this will wrap up our look at The Fruit of the Spirit. It says The Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So what are we talking about here?

Well the first thing, this word is it means one who masters. Now that might seem sort of antithetical or contrarian. You wouldn't think that someone could master their self-control. So what exactly are we talking about? Well it's talking about one who masters their desires. What are we talking about desires? Because the Bible says, delight yourself in the Lord. He will give you the desires of your heart. So not all desires are bad desires. First thing to point out when we're talking about self-control here is that self-control is always within context, which of course brings about the word timing. So we get into trouble when we rush ahead of God's timing for our timing. So a lot of times

we can have desires. Now what are desires? They could be goals, they could be a vision, they could be a strategy to accomplish something. Not all desires are bad desires.

If the devil can't get you to sin, he can get you to short-circuit God's timing. Which brings us back to this idea of self-control. It's one who's mastered their desires for the appropriate timing for God's timing. So you have the desire to say for instance run a company or have a business or own a home or be married, have children, travel, etc. Those can be God-given desires but they will always require God's timing. I wear a watch so that I can keep track the amount of time that I've been in the water surfing. There's an appropriate amount of time for me to surf about one hour, one hour fifteen

minutes so that I can enjoy the benefits of exercise and surfing on my health. Also so that it can set me up for success for the rest of my day so I keep track of the timing. Surfing I can be successful. So you want to keep track of and sense God's timing in your life which is going to require self-control. Now unfortunately we don't have a perfect manual for this so a lot of times we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna sin. We ask God to forgive us of our sin when we don't exercise self-control, when we don't line up with God's timing even though he's given us good desires. Let me explain this a

little bit more. One who's mastered their desires, one who masters their passions.

Now what are passions? Well passions have to do with the drive that we have in our life. Desires are things you want to accomplish. Passions are the things that really drive us and give us energy. So we want to bring our desires in step with the Spirit. We want to bring our passions in step with the Spirit so that we can have the fruit of the Spirit. And then the last thing is one who masters their appetites. What are we talking about appetites? Now these are the most basic of our appetites. It's talking about sleep, it's talking about nutrition. Well what does that mean? Well you can't, if you want to be successful with God, for God in your life, you can't just sleep whenever you want. I've

actually seen people in my life fall asleep during meetings. That's the wrong place to sleep. And then there is of course the right place to sleep. So in our culture that's at night unless you have a job where you work at night like

I have a cousin who's a police officer, he works nights of course he's gonna sleep during the day. But mastering our appetites means that you use sleep and nutrition to your advantage. You're not mastered by sleep, meaning you just sleep too much or you sleep too little. Get the appropriate amount of sleep. Most people need on average of about eight hours a night, I know I do. And then when we're talking about nutrition, so we're not mastered by food, we're not mastered by the cravings that come along with food, we have self-discipline and self-control with our sleep and with our nutrition. Now we tend to get emotional attachments to just the most basic of appetites and I think what we need to develop here is health in our life in regards to our sleep, in regards to our nutrition.

There's a difference between calories and nutrition. Now there are people much more qualified to speak about nutrition but your health has an impact on your spiritual life. So you're gonna want to make sure you're getting enough rest and that you're getting the proper nutrition for your body because we live in this world, our body is subject to the rules of this world. So last of this today is the fruit of the spirit self-control. We want God to help us master our desires, our passions, and our appetites. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Until next time, I hope you have a beautiful day.