control yourself

Self control....If you think about it, the idea is kind of amazing.  It suggests that we need to take one part of our identity to control another part of our identity.  It suggests that, if we don't control that "other part" of who we are, we won't "be all we can be".  What are these parts of our identity...How does one part of "who we are" control another part of who we are?

This is what Peter is talking about in 2 Peter 1, when he is discussing the disciplines to add to faith.

2 Peter 1:⁵ But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,

The Message version calls self-control "alert discipline".  The King James word for self control is "temperance".  The word "control" comes from a root that also means counter, or "against", as a wheel may be counter-rotated and the concept comes from medieval bookkeeping where a second set of ledgers were used to check an accountant's books.  We have two sets of books running through our lives: the natural man and the spiritual man.  

The apostle Paul talked about this dilemma in Romans chapter 7:

¹⁵ For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. ¹⁶ If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.¹⁷ But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. ¹⁹ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. ²⁰ Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 
²¹ I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. ²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! 
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

We, like Paul, have this same conflict of flesh and spirit.  And like Paul, the only way to find "self-control" is through the help of the Lord.  Paul gives us some answers in Romans, chapter 8: ¹¹ But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

By setting our minds on the Spirit of God living within us we find self-control.  We cannot control ourselves, but He can, as we focus on Him.  Paul captures this best in the same chapter: ⁶ For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 

blessings,

Rob Smith