Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Here we go.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that self-control is listed last. We don’t have a prayer of developing it until the other 8 fruits are healthy and growing on our Spirit Tree. It’s sort of like a cake.
You want cake but you can’t just have cake (or eat it too, right?). You have to have flour, eggs, sugar, oil, butter, water / milk, chocolate, cream cheese icing (the good cakes anyway…), and probably some other things that I can’t think of. Just like you must have all the ingredients before you can have a cake, you must have a healthy and vibrant Spirit Tree full of Spiritual Fruit. Too many metaphors? I digress.
God gives us the ability to overcome sin in our lives. He does that by granting us self-control. Situations and people who used to make us fly off the handle are now seen in a totally different light. Painful experiences in our lives that we don’t understand are now seen in a different light. Our Christian brothers and sisters that usually annoy us because they just can’t seem to get it right are now seen in a different light.
When God grows love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in our lives, we are finally able to see the big picture. We are finally able to see that every moment we find ourselves in is eternally vital.
Choose self-control and choose to live to love God and others with everything that you have.
