And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control… 2 Peter 1:6 (AMPC)
What brakes are to vehicles and machinery, self-control is to life. Any moving object without the ability to brake is an accident and catastrophe in motion. So is a woman or man without self-control.
If you can’t control yourself you can’t control anything, you can’t carry on or carry out anything, you’re a liability, and you can’t be relied on.
Thankfully self-control is part of our born again spirit. All of us who are joined with the Lord are one spirit with Him- 1Corinthians 6:17. We share in the attributes of the Spirit of God. We already have self-control as fruit in our spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Every tree produces fruit after its own kind as long as it is in a conducive environment and nourished with the right nutrients. When we are in facilitative situations and properly nourished we will effortlessly bear fruit that’s befitting and self-control is part of such fruit. One African proverb says that a tree that doesn’t know how to dance is taught by the wind. Facilitative situations that foster development of self-control aren’t actually convenient to us. It is in those circumstances where we are pushed out of our comfort zones that self-control is developed. It is not the people, conditions or circumstances that are nice but rather the ones that are nasty to us that bring out the self-controlled champion in us. How could you ever learn to control your anger if there was no one or nothing to provoke it?
Thank God for those who get on your nerves, count them a blessing those who rub you the wrong way, shout with triumph over those who step on your toes and dance to the Lord in tune to the ones that are a stone in your shoe! Point is it’s through adversity that self-control is developed. Why is it so? All those difficult challenges remind us look to and rely on the Lord our inexhaustible strength on the inside of us. Self-control is really depending on the strength of God in us instead of taking matters into our own hands. Therefore it’s of the essence that we are well nourished on the Word of God because it’s through the Word as we study it and act on it that we draw from that divine strength in us.