In this episode I go over self-control and I provide 5 Habits to help you practice self control. I pair this with prayer and scripture to reveal the fruit of the Spirit in our Hearts.
This episode is number 9 of 9 episodes about the fruit of the Spirit. In the first 8 episodes we went over love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness. If you haven't checked out those episodes, go check them out first and come back to this because all of these episodes are going to go hand in hand with the fruit of the Spirit. To really take this journey of transformation with me, you need to make sure you check out each episode and do the reflection on each episode. I know that if you take this journey with me to really dive deep and reveal the fruit of the Spirit in our hearts, that it can and will transform your heart.
So first I want to say quick prayer to reveal self-control in our hearts:
Lord I pray that you lift with every single person listening to this right now and that you reveal self-control in our hearts. I pray that you open up our eyes to see the truth of your words, you open up our ears, our mind, our heart, and our soul to you Lord. I pray that in every aspect of our life, we practice self-control and we maintain that relationship with you so self control can be revealed in our hearts, every single day. I love you so much Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Now that we have our hearts open to self-control, let's go straight into some scripture:
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." -2 Timothy 1: 7
So in this verse, it means that the spirit that God gave us (the Holy spirit) is not a timid spirit, it's not a shy, scared spirit, but the Holy spirit is full of power, love, and self-discipline or self-control.
"The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray." -1 Peter 4: 7
So in order to pray we have to have our minds clear of distractions, practice that self control, and be disciplined. Praying every single day helps us to get the truth from God, the truth that he wants us to hear, and to get guidance and direction from him so we can spread the gospel to other people and teach them about him and how amazing he is. But in order to pray and get guidance from God, we have to have our minds clear of distraction and be self-disciplined and have self-control.
"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control." -Proverbs 25: 28
When having a foundation through Jesus Christ and being his disciple, it is so important to practice Self-control. Self-control requires a lot of strength, patience, and a lot of time of being still with the Lord and having guidance and direction from him.
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." -1 Corinthians 10: 13
We are human, we all our sinners, and we're all going to face temptation, but there's nothing that we can't bear with Jesus Christ by our side. With God and with the Holy spirit within us, there's nothing that we can't handle and when we do face temptation, the Lord will provide us a way out so we can stand up under it so we won't give in to that temptation. I'm not saying that we're never going to give into temptation because we are sinners, but when we're doing the things every single day to draw closer to Christ and have that strong relationship with him and we're practicing self-control, that'll make it a lot less likely for us to give into temptation. God gives us that power and strength to resist temptation, we just have to tap into that. Self-control is not something that's easy, especially in the way that the world is today with so many evil and corrupt things being normalized and so many people saying, "do whatever makes you happy," "This world is yours." "No one else matters." "Practice self love," and all of the things with the way that the world is today, it makes it practicing self-control that much harder. That is why it's so important for us to rely on God for strength and guidance every step of the way.
Here are 5 Habits to Help You Practice Self-control:
1. Study the Bible
-It's important to study our Bible, because the Bible gives us guidelines and tells us what is right and what is wrong and the things that we should be doing if we're disciples of Jesus Christ.
2. Pray
-Pray for knowledge and understanding while you're reading the Bible
-Pray and ask for guidance, direction, and for God to reveal self control in your heart (just like we did at the beginning of this episode).
3. Let the power of God control you
-So instead of thinking that we have complete control, even though I know this episode is all about self-control, the one that's in ultimate control is God.
-Through the power of the Holy spirit we can have self-control if we maintain a healthy relationship with Christ and have the power of the Holy spirit reveal self- control to us.
-So instead of us focusing so much on how we can change things about ourselves or how we can control certain things, we want to focus on letting the power of the Holy Spirit give us self-control and letting go and completely trusting in God.
4. Repent
-As humans and as sinners we're going to mess up sometimes, that's just what happens.
-Jesus Christ will always forgive us, if we have asked him to come into our heart, and we ask him to forgive us of our sins, but we have to make a habit to make sure that we're repenting and asking for that forgiveness.
-When we recognize and we know what we're doing is wrong that's gonna make it to where we don't want to do that same thing again, because we have that Holy spirit guiding us to do the right thing and we're not going to want to keep doing wrong things over and over again (especially when we're pairing this with studying our Bible, praying, and letting the power of the Holy spirit control us).
5. Continually build your relationship with God
-So every single day, studying our Bible, praying, talking to God, being still, letting him know that he's in complete control, acknowledging him in every single thing that we do, submitting to the will of God and the calling that he's placed in our hearts, and just practicing having that close relationship with him is so important.
-Whenever we hear those whispers from God, giving us guidance and direction and helping us discover our calling or stay faithful to our calling, we have to make sure that our mind is clear and open to hearing his whispers and that we act upon whatever it is that he's telling us and that we stay faithful to the calling he's placed in our heart.
-In every single thing that we do our main focus should be on God, on having a relationship with him and strengthening that relationship every single day, because maintaining self control takes a lot of strength and we can only get that strength through Christ.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." -Philippians 4: 13
So in order to have self control and practice self control, we have to get strength and power from Jesus Christ and in order to get that strength, we have to practice these five different things and continually building that relationship with God every single day.
So I hope this episode helped you guys and this concludes all of the episodes for the fruit of the Spirit. I know for me, going week by week with these episodes and really practicing these different things, I can definitely see a difference. It's definitely transformed my heart and just helped me to stay grounded and realize that having a relationship with Christ is the most important thing. So if you've went through each of these nine episodes with the Fruit of the spirit, I hope that you've seen some transformation of your heart and that you've really dove deep into the reflection and the different things on each of these episodes and that they've helped you.
I love you guys so much.
Never forget to choose faith over fear.
-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)
p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, business, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.
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