“We know that
the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I
do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate
I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the
law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it,
but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does
not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it
out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I
do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I
do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that
does it.” Romans 7:14-20
YouTube Testimony
Have
you seen the videos of people driving like nuts on YouTube? I watched a video on there this week which
was a compilation of various motorcycle crashes. The sins committed by most of these
motorcyclists are largely the result of the drivers intentionally doing dumb
things: passing on the right shoulder, speeding through intersections,
following at too close a distance, passing into turning traffic, driving at
unsafe and illegal speeds, and stunt riding.
Why would riders willingly do such things which to the rest of us are on
our “Do NOT Do That!” list?
Do you observe
in your life a propensity to do things that you should not do? Does it occur that those things may be things
that you KNOW you should not do...yet, sometimes you just go ahead and do
them? It isn’t that you can’t control
yourself. Rather, that you make a
conscious decision to NOT control yourself.
Perhaps, in the moment of temptation, the momentary pleasure of sin
seems to outweigh the overarching reality of the consequence of sin. Later, you deal with the consequence and/or
guilt of that momentary lapse in judgment and lament the lack of self-control.
Believe
it or not, this reality is common to all of those who pursue Christ. We deeply desire to live holy and acceptable
lives…To exhibit the righteousness of God in all we do. Therefore, to combat future such instances of
similar sin, we may make promises to ourselves: “I am DONE with this sin! No more.
Next time, I’m going to resist!”
So we double down and determine that next time we will be stronger! We may even have some success for a season
and not fall to the same patterns or temptations. Then comes that day when temptation prevails
once more. And there we are again. No self-control. Arrrrgggh!!
Is
there no victory for the believer? Is
there no hope for us when we struggle to live differently than the world? How convenient would it be if we could just
drive down to Wal-Mart or to the local Christian bookstore and ‘buy’ some
self-control!! But we can’t.
In
Romans 7, we witness the struggle that the Apostle Paul is having within
himself: “For I do not do the
good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Why
is this the case? Because the nature of
sin is a part of being human. It would
be wonderful if the erasure of the sinful nature was a part of our confession
and water baptism, but it isn’t. Or if
it went away simply by attending church.
It doesn’t.
So what
is the solution? Where does self-control
come from? So what do we do?
Learning To Be ‘Fruity’
Galatians
5:22-23 reads: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and
self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Hey, something I want you to notice here: There
is ONE fruit of the Spirit. One. “…the fruit of the
Spirit is…” When the Spirit
of God abides in us, (and I think we
would do well to hear echoes of John 15:7 whereby we are abiding in God and his
words abide in us) the power of God is working in us and His fruit is grown
in us. The fruit of the Spirit is nine
fold in what it produces in our lives: love, joy, peace, forbearance (restraint,
tolerance), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and wait…look here: *Self-control*!
We really need to drink this
truth in. Self-control is not born out
of our will. It is not something that is
produced by self-determination or even self-discipline. It is grown in us by us yielding our lives
over to the Spirit of God, working in us.
God gives us self-control!
Let me say that again: God gives
us self-control. It is his gift to us
and it grows in us as a product of our fellowship with him, the infilling of
his Holy Spirit working in us, and the Word of God transforming our thinking,
our priorities, our actions and reactions. So, the harsh truth I must accept
for my own life is that if I examine my living and find self-control waning, it
is not because I’m not trying hard enough.
It is because I am allowing my relationship with my heavenly Father to
wither. As I reconnect to him, the
withering reverses, and the fruit begins to grow again.
To draw a little further from John 15:4-5: "Abide
in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides
in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 "I am the vine,
you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit,
for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Prayer
“Almighty God, I
am prone to let your fruit spoil.
Without your fellowship and presence in my life, I drift in the ocean of
my own ways…and very quickly your fruit begins to disappear from my living. I am sorry.
Work within me again…work the soil of my life that I may be
fruitful. Thank you for your
self-control. Thank you for your fruit
of the spirit, in all its manifestations, In your Son’s name I pray, Amen.”
Submitted By Kerry Patton
