Walking with the Wise #475: Self-Control is Serious

“A man without self-control

is like a city broken into and left without walls.”
—Proverbs 25:28

Self-control is one of the most important character traits for a Christian. Without it, we are destroyed and unprotected as today’s proverb illustrates. It’s also one of the most alarming for the unbeliever. Paul, after being taken into custody for his adherence to the Christian faith, speaks to the Roman governor Felix and his twenty-two-year-old wife, Drusilla. Their union was a scandal of sorts in the ancient world. Drusilla was a Jewess and was already married when Felix entered into her life. He was so captivated by her beauty that he managed to convince her to divorce her Jewish husband and marry him, a pagan—neither of which was lawful for her to do, but she did it nevertheless.

While Paul was giving an account before Felix and Drusilla of his faith in Christ, he began to reason “about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment”—Acts 24:25. Paul wasn’t one to mince words, nor was he one to back down or skirt certain issues. His words alarmed Felix, because Felix realized that if Paul were right, then he wasn’t righteous, hadn’t practiced self-control, and would be judged.

Self-control is a serious concern for all of us. We are taught when we are young that we can’t control very many things in life, but we can control ourselves. But can we really? Certainly, we can control some things, but we know ourselves well enough to know that we can’t do it perfectly. In fact, we know that we have cravings for sin that we can’t control. As Paul so painfully expressed it,


“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”—Romans 7:15-24.

Our sinful flesh enslaves us, making us unable to do that which God desires us to do! We can’t control ourselves because we are enslaved to sin and have to obey its passions! But that is not all! In Christ, we have been set free! He has set us free from this body of death, cutting the cord to our sinful flesh that enslaves us by dying in our place. When we are regenerated to believe in Him, God places His Holy Spirit in us, thereby appropriating His death as our death, and His resurrection as our resurrection. One of the characteristics of His Spirit at work in our lives is self-control, which is our new ability to say no to sin and yes to righteousness (Galatians 5:23).

Are you a Christian? Does God’s Spirit indwell you? Then you have the ability to say no to sin and yes to all that God has for you. Satan will try and convince you that you are forever a slave to your sinful passions, but you are not. Although you will battle the sinful flesh that will be present until Christ comes again or you go to be with him in death, you do not have to obey its passions. You are a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), which has been set free from sin (John 8:36), and can find the victory that has already been secured through what Jesus has already done for you. Take it by faith. Amen.