But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
Self control is something that we all can understand, right? We exercise self-control in all aspects of our lives: going on a diet and depriving ourselves of certain foods we like, working out or training for a sport, limiting time scrolling on social media, staying away from alcohol, not listening to gossip, or keeping a secret we desperately want to tell someone, to name a few. Those things can be extremely difficult and can often include breaking bad habits. Let’s think about the habits we may need to break in these scenarios: eating whatever we want whenever we want it, sitting lazily on the couch, endlessly scrolling and watching the highlight reels of everyone we follow, going out and partying every night, spending time with friends who only ever bash on other people, or talking to people who ask intrusive questions.
Clearly, self-control is important in the Christian life. Ephesians 5:18 says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” If you are like me, the word debauchery is not one that you hear in your day to day life. So naturally, I looked up the definition and it means “excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures.” That makes sense in this context, right? Getting drunk is definitely “excessive indulgence” in the pleasure of consuming alcohol. Like how we are to control our alcohol consumption, we are also to control our actions and our bodies. Self-control is a conscious decision we have to make when we are tempted to lose control and give in to our fleshly desires. The next part of the verse, though, says to be filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit gives us the ability to practice self control, along with all of the other attributes of a Spirit filled life listed in Galatians 5. Without being filled with the Spirit, we cannot truly have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control. Any outward expression of those attributes without the Spirit dwelling in us is tainted by the sins of this world and is not a reflection of God’s glory.
In terms of teaching children again, self-control is directly related to gentleness. When teaching gentleness, we teach children to use a soft touch and kind words with other people. The self-control side of that is refraining from a rough or harsh touch and angry or upset outbursts. We often teach children to not hit or throw things and to not yell or scream at people. If that isn’t self control, I don’t know what is! And, how do we expect children to refrain from physical or verbal outbursts when we are unable to do the exact thing we want them to do without the help of the Holy Spirit?
The verse above focuses on being self controlled in our actions. One verse that is directed at our words is Ephesians 4:29, which says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Wow! That really does not give any room for gossip, which usually takes form as spreading potential lies that are meant to tear down other people. We are called to build up other people, whether they are present in the conversation or not. What a concept for people who love drama or don’t like certain people and want everyone else to hate the same people.
Gossip has always been a normal practice and most people in the world seem to not care one bit unless they are the hot topic. We have even created new phrases when we want to hear gossip or corrupting talk about other people. We used to say “spill the beans” and now the current phrase we tell people is “spill the tea,” which is basically the other person’s que to share the latest gossip or interaction with whoever is on their mind at the moment or whoever they have the most conflict with. All that does is make the person sharing the gossip feel good about how they acted and paints the other person in a bad light. We even say that the tea is “piping hot” when it paints a person in an extra bad light. Even in Christian circles, where we should know better than to be gossiping about others, we can still easily fall into “spilling the tea,” even in the context of sharing prayer requests. How are we supposed to be glorifying God when we are talking poorly about other people? Let’s all practice self control, both physically and verbally!
Abbi