Self-Control and the Power of Christ
By David Mathis
It sounds so simple and straightforward,
perhaps even commonplace.
It’s not a flashy concept or an especially
attractive idea. It
doesn’t turn heads or grab headlines. It can be
as seemingly small
as saying no to another Oreo, French fry, or
milkshake — or
another half hour on Netflix or Facebook — or
it can feel as
significant as living out a resounding yes to
sobriety and sexual
purity. It is at the height of Christian virtue
in a fallen world,
and its exercise is quite simply one of the
most difficult things
you can ever learn to do.
Self-control — our hyphenated English is frank
and functional.
There’s no cloak of imagery or euphemistic
pretense. No punches
pulled, no poetic twist, no endearing irony.
Self-control is
simply that important, impressive, and nearly
impossible practice
of learning to maintain control of the beast of
one’s own sinful
passions. It means remaining master of your own
domain not only in
the hunky-dory, but also when faced with trial
or temptation.
Self-control may be the epitome of “easier said
than done.”
It Can Be Taught
“Marshmallow man” Walter Mischel is an Ivy
League professor known
for his experiments in self-control. Nearly 50
years ago, he
created a test to see how various five-year-
olds would respond to
being left alone with a marshmallow for 15
minutes with
instructions not to eat it — and with the
promises that if they
didn’t, they would be given two. The New York
Times reports,
Famously, preschoolers who waited longest for
the marshmallow went
on to have higher SAT scores than the ones who
couldn’t wait. In
later years they were thinner, earned more
advanced degrees, used
less cocaine, and coped better with stress. As
these first
marshmallow kids now enter their 50s, Mr.
Mischel and colleagues
are investigating whether the good delayers are
richer, too.
Now Mischel is an octogenarian and freshly
wants to make sure that
the nervous parents of self-indulgent children
don’t miss his key
finding: “Whether you eat the marshmallow at
age 5 isn’t your
destiny. Self-control can be taught.”
If It’s Christian
Alongside love and godliness, self-control
serves as a major
summary term for Christian conduct in full
flower (2 Timothy 1:7;
Titus 2:6, 12; 1 Peter 4:7; 2 Peter 1:6). It is
the climactic
“fruit of the Spirit” in the apostle’s famous
list (Galatians
5:22–23) and one of the first things that must
be characteristic
of leaders in the church (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus
1:8). Acts
summarizes the apostle’s reasoning about the
Christian gospel and
worldview as “righteousness and self-control
and the coming
judgment” (Acts 24:25). And Proverbs 25:28
likens “a man without
self-control” to “a city broken into and left
without walls.”
“True self-control is not about bringing our
selves under our own
control, but under the power of Christ.” Tweet
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For starters, the idea of controlling one’s own
self presumes at
least two things: 1) the presence of something
within us that
needs to be bridled and 2) the possibility in
us, or through us,
for drawing on some source of power to restrain
it. For the born-
again, our hearts are new, but the poison of
indwelling sin still
courses through our veins. Not only are there
evil desires to
renounce altogether, but good desires to keep
in check and indulge
only in appropriate ways.
Christian self-control is multifaceted. It
involves both “control
over one’s behavior and the impulses and
emotions beneath it”
(Philip Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus,
252). It includes
our minds and our emotions — not just our
outward actions, but our
internal state.
Heart, Mind, Body, Drink, and Sex
Biblically, self-control, or lack thereof, goes
to the deepest
part of us: the heart. It begins with control
of our emotions, and
then includes our minds as well. Self-control
is often paired with
“sober-mindedness” (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8;
Titus 2:2; 1 Peter
4:7), and in several places the language of
“self-control” applies
especially to the mind. Mark 5:15 and Luke 8:35
characterize the
healed demoniac as “clothed and in his right
mind.” Paul uses
similar language to speak of being in his right
mind (2
Corinthians 5:13), as well as not being out of
his mind (Acts
26:25). And Romans 12:3 exhorts every Christian
“not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think,”
but to exercise a
form of self-control: thinking “with sober
judgment.”
Self-control is bodily and external as well.
The apostle
disciplines his body to “keep it under control”
(1 Corinthians
9:25–27). It can mean not being “slaves to much
wine” (Titus 2:3–
5). And in particular, the language of self-
control often has
sexual overtones. Paul instructs Christians to
“abstain from
sexual immorality; that each one of you know
how to control his
own body in holiness and honor, not in the
passion of lust” (1
Thessalonians 4:3–5). In a charge to women in 1
Timothy 2:9, self-
control relates to modesty. And 1 Corinthians 7
presumes some lack
of self-control in married adults that might
give Satan some
foothold were they to unnecessarily deprive
their spouse sexually
for an extended time (1 Corinthians 7:5). God
has given some the
calling of singleness and with it, “having his
desire under
control” (1 Corinthians 7:37); others “burn
with passion” and find
it better to marry (1 Corinthians 7:9).
The question for the Christian, then, is this:
If self-control is
so significant — and if indeed it can be taught
— then how do I go
about pursuing it as a Christian?
Find Your Source Outside Your Self
Professor Mischel preaches a gospel of
distraction and distancing:
The children who succeed turn their backs on
the cookie, push it
away, pretend it’s something nonedible like a
piece of wood, or
invent a song. Instead of staring down the
cookie, they transform
it into something with less of a throbbing pull
on them. . . . If
you change how you think about it, its impact
on what you feel and
do changes.
This may be a good place to start, but the
Bible has more to teach
than raw renunciation. Turn your eyes and
attention, yes, but not
to a mere diversion, but to the source of true
change and real
power that is outside yourself, where you can
lawfully indulge.
The key to self-control is not inward, but
upward.
Gift and Duty
True self-control is a gift from above,
produced in and through us
by the Holy Spirit. Until we own that it is
received from outside
ourselves, rather than whipped up from within,
the effort we give
to control our own selves will redound to our
praise, rather than
God’s.
“We are promised the gift of self-control, yet
we also must take
it by force.” Tweet Share on Facebook
But we also need to note that self-control is
not a gift we
receive passively, but actively. We are not the
source, but we are
intimately involved. We open the gift and live
it. Receiving the
grace of self-control means taking it all the
way in and then out
into the actual exercise of the grace. “As the
Hebrews were
promised the land, but had to take it by force,
one town at a
time,” says Ed Welch, “so we are promised the
gift of self-
control, yet we also must take it by force”
(“Self-Control: The
Battle Against ‘One More’”).
You may be able to trick yourself into some
semblance of true
self-control. You may be able to drum up the
willpower to just say
no. But you alone get the glory for that —
which will not prove
satisfying enough for the Christian.
We want Jesus to get glory. We want to control
ourselves in the
power he supplies. We learn to say no, but we
don’t just say no.
We admit the inadequacy, and emptiness, of
doing it on our own. We
pray for Jesus’s help, secure accountability,
and craft specific
strategies (“Develop a clear, publicized plan,”
counsels Welch).
We trust God’s promises to supply the power for
every good work (2
Corinthians 9:8; Philippians 4:19) and then act
in faith that he
will do it in and through us (Philippians 2:12–
13). And then we
thank him for every Spirit-supplied strain and
success and step
forward in self-control.
Christ-Control
Ultimately, our controlling ourselves is about
being controlled by
Christ. When “the love of Christ controls us”
(2 Corinthians
5:14), when we embrace the truth that he is our
sovereign, and God
has “left nothing outside his control” (Hebrews
2:8), we can bask
in the freedom that we need not muster our own
strength to
exercise self-control, but we can find strength
in the strength of
another. In the person of Jesus, “the grace of
God has appeared .
. . training us” — not just “to renounce
ungodliness and worldly
passions,” but “to live self-controlled,
upright, and godly lives
in the present age” (Titus 2:11–12). Christian
self-control is not
finally about bringing our bodily passions
under our own control,
but under the control of Christ by the power of
his Spirit.
Because self-control is a gift, produced in and
through us by
God’s Spirit, Christians can and should be the
people on the
planet most hopeful about growing in self-
control. We are, after
all, brothers of the most self-controlled man
in the history of
the world.
“Christians can be the people on the planet
most hopeful about
growing in self-control.” Tweet Share on
Facebook
All his life he was “without sin” (Hebrews
4:15). “He committed no
sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1
Peter 2:22). He
stayed the course even when sweat came like
drops of blood (Luke
22:44). He could have called twelve legions of
angels (Matthew
26:53), but he had the wherewithal to not rebut
the false charges
(Matthew 27:14) or defend himself (Luke 23:9).
When reviled, he
did not revile in return (1 Peter 2:23). They
spit in his face and
struck him; some slapped him (Matthew 26:67).
They scourged him
(Matthew 27:26). In every trial and temptation,
“he learned
obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews
5:8), and at the
pinnacle of his self-control he was “obedient
to the point of
death, even death on a cross” (Philippians
2:8). And he is the one
who strengthens us (1 Timothy 1:12; Philippians
4:13).
In Jesus, we have a source for true self-
control far beyond that
of our feeble selves.
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