Twenty four hours in a day But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Against such things there is not a law. Gal. 5:22-23 Looking at self-control, as a fruit of the Spirit. In the Greek it is egkrateia. The virtue of one who masters his desires and passions, esp. his sensual appetites ~ Thayer’s Temperance, Temperate: from kratos, “strength,” occurs in Act 24:25; Gal 5:23; 2Pe 1:6 (twice), in all of which it is rendered “temperance;” the RV marg., “self-control” is the preferable rendering, as “temperance” is now limited to one form of self-control; the various powers bestowed by God upon man are capable of abuse; the right use demands the controlling power of the will under the operation of the Spirit of God; in Act 24:25 the word follows “righteousness,” which represents God’s claims, self-control being man’s response thereto; in 2Pe 1:6, it follows “knowledge,” suggesting that what is learned requires to be put into practice. ~ Vine’s Let us note that self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. But it is “self” control, so who does it, self or the Spirit? As explained so well by Mr Vine it is our response to the work of the Spirit. Our response IS a work of the Spirit, unless we are doing something in our own strength, and Jesus said that we can do nothing good apart from Him. God requires us to obey Him, but then the instant we obey Him we experience it as His power and not our own. A little mysterious. It gets the Calvinists and Arminians worked up into a lather. Yesterday it came to me that there are twenty four hours in a day. That’s a lot of hours, and you can even do a lot in one hour, by God’s grace. Then i thought about self-control as a fruit of the Spirit. I think we waste a lot of God’s time bcos we are limited in this particular fruit of the Spirit. If this fruit of self-control was more evident in our lives then we would be much more focused on the Kingdom of God and much more fruitful in His Kingdom. Most Christians could be so much more powerful and effective in the Kingdom if they had more self-control or self-discipline, coupled with wisdom, being very sensitive to the Holy Spirit, as it is His fruit after all. Therefore he says, Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. See then that you walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Eph. 5:14-17 Walk in wisdom toward them that are outsiders, redeeming the time. Col. 4:5 So, self-control is not just limited to ruling over the lusts of the flesh, it also means to redeem the time and bring it under subjection to Christ. Even the time is His, He owns it. So when Christians try to draw me into foolish arguments then i have to draw the line and redeem the time and exercise self-control. If we don’t exercise self-control in these things then we will find others setting the agenda for our life and thus usurping the place of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord of our life. ~ ianvincent.wordpress/
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 04:51:43 +0000
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