“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
Galatians 5:22-23 NLT
Last but certainly not least, the last fruit of the Spirit to discuss is self-control. It is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the ability to control your emotions and actions”. The Oxford English Dictionary defines self-control as, “the ability to control oneself, in particular one’s emotions and desires or the expression of them in one’s behavior, especially in difficult situations”. How hard is that to do in everyday life? Someone cuts you off in traffic, the initial response for most people is to get angry and upset. Possibly yell at them even though they can’t hear you. But the person with self-control can let it go and move on with their day. They don’t let the interaction ruffle their feathers or get under their skin. Self-control takes a lot of heart work and we can’t do it without the Holy Spirit guiding and leading our every step.
“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
2 Peter 1:3-11
In these verses the apostle Peter is speaking how we can grow in our faith. We cannot do it with self-control alone, and we cannot do it with only patience. We must have all parts of the Spirit living in and through us to live the life we are called to live. It requires constant prayer and communication with God to build our self-control as well as all the other fruits of the Spirit. We don’t just automatically receive each one. Just as an athlete works daily to build endurance for competition, we all must put in the effort daily to “live in a way that pleases God”, 1 Thessalonians 4:1. So as we close this series, let’s remember that we can’t just pick and choose the fruit we want or which we think is easier and focus on that one, but use each fruit to build on one another and thereby, imaging God.
