“But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22 NIV).
All of these fruits are
available to you as a Christian. Do people see them in your life? I have difficulties with self-control. I
recently got a Kindle Fire for my birthday and immediately downloaded many
“free” games for it. You might say I have an obsessive personality to a point
and found myself playing those games all day at first. It was fun and I found
myself wanting to get to a new level. I did refuse to buy virtual things to win,
which is a total waste of money. Soon hours went past and there I was still
sitting playing the games when my husband came home from work. I knew it was
out of control when I had dreamt all night that I had to match three candies
(Candy Crush) in order to save someone’s life. Needless to say, I woke up
thinking that I had a problem. Then I heard
a testimony on K-Love from a woman with two masters’ degrees and was addicted
to Farm-ville, which I hadn’t played yet. She said she got up in the middle of
the night to feed virtual animals. ‘Wow’, I thought, ‘That is way over the
top’. But then I thought about how much time I was wasting sitting there
playing those games and was ashamed. It was a wake-up call for me to stop it. I
had let games take over my life and the desire to get to new levels was
addictive. Plus, I hadn’t read the Bible or done my Bible study because of
this. That is when I repented and decided to limit my game playing. It is so important not to let your life get
caught up in other things so much that you stop serving God and others.
Self-control is a fruit of
the spirit, but you must ask God to help you to do it. He alone can give you
the strength to stop whatever is addictive in your life. Gaming is minor
compared to other things that can be addictive, but anything that becomes more
important than God is a sin.
It is serious to not have
self-control. Let me share a verse about the last days that Paul wrote, “But
mark this; There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers
of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without
self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited,
lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God- having a form of godliness but
denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV). Quite a list isn’t it? The last part
really hit me, “Having a form of godliness but denying its power”.
Are you doing that? You have the power within you to have
self-control, but you must pray and ask God to help you.
Dear Lord,
Help us to have
self-control in our lives so that we can be good witnesses for you. Help us to
put you first in every area of our lives.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
