Mon Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

The last fruit of the Spirit is what Paul calls“self-control.” If there is any fruit on the list where all of us are sometimes lacking, even the most disciplined of us, it would be this fruit.

Just ask yourself the following questions:

Have you at any time eaten too much, eaten more than you should have or even eaten so much you got sick to your stomach?

Have you ever stuck your nose in a matter that didn’t concern you?

Have you ever medaled in somebody else’s business?

Have you ever said something when you should have said nothing?

Have you ever made an impulse buy?

Have you ever procrastinated and put something off until tomorrow that you know you should have done today?

Do you wish you had never laid eyes on a credit card?

Then at one time or another you have had a problem with a lack of self-control.

I don’t want you to beat yourself up too badly over this, because the greatest Christian who ever lived not counting of course, Jesus Christ himself, was a man by the name of Paul. If you know anything about the Apostle Paul you might think that he always had it all together. If anybody came close to being perfect it was him. At the height of his career he was the greatest preacher, the greatest theologian, the greatest missionary, the greatest evangelist, and the greatest church planter in the world. He was Rick Warren and Billy Graham rolled into one person. In one of the most candid, transparent passages he ever wrote he makes this simple statement:

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”(Romans 7:15)

That is amazing. He is openly admitting that there are times he loses self-control.

Bottom line: Until we recognize every day that self is literally something that must be brought under control on a daily basis then we will not control self, but self will control us.