Not merely abstaining from doing a bad thing, or choosing to do the right thing, it is part of growing in Christ. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
- We are no longer caged in by the power of sin \u2013 its passions and desires (Gal 5:24). <\/li>
- Proverbs 25:28 – Like a city whose walls are broken down is like someone who lacks self-control. City? Not me. Walls? That sounds like relationship. Broken down? Yes, I now know what that means.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Self-control is a sign of being children of God, his Spirit guides, protects and surrounds us like a wall. But he does not force us. We can break out of the wall if we so choose, the way the rich young man wanted the new gadget in town – \u201ceternal life\u201d (Matthew 19) while yet maintaining a sort of double life where he thought the ten commandments could not apply to his wealth (and maybe passions and desires). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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I don\u2019t think the taxi driver immediately thought hey he must be a Christian. I could have chosen not to tell him about the treasure, or picked it up and gave it to him. But interesting thing is that he trusted in what I said without checking it himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Self-control is not merely being determined to do something, otherwise we could just say \u201cbeing determined\u201d as a fruit of the Spirit. A person exercising self-control is like one who chooses for him-\/her-self an action or attitude that is a result, or even a proof, of growing in Christ. Ultimately, this person becomes more mature in Christ. 2 Pet 1:5-7 has self control as the 3rd<\/sup> element in \u201cmake every effort to add to your faith\u201d, preceded by goodness and knowledge. It\u2019s interesting that Jesus said to the rich young man his required \u201cself control\u201d actions to attain eternal life in this sequence: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(1) do lots of good work,
(2) God gives you award, but wait till you get to heaven,
(3) with (1) and (2) already in the bag, follow Jesus. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThere might be much more in this story for the particular way Jesus responded to this man, so we probably shouldn\u2019t over-generalise the story. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Jesus didn\u2019t teach his disciples to spend their days in silent meditation, but to equip themselves with the Gospel brand and globalise it using their own life stories as marketing materials. Eventually it is the Spirit that touches people. Self control is choosing to do the right thing for God because it\u2019s become \u201cfirst nature\u201d to us as we grow in Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While certain that the coin didn\u2019t belong to me, I thought the best thing to do was to leave it to the driver to decide its fate. I didn\u2019t see a pound coin in the return taxi, and I didn\u2019t get the result I wanted from the interview. But those are secondary to a new character beginning in faith (2 Pet 1:5-7). There\u2019s some element of \u201cbeing determined\u201d in this passage, and the objective is to be a more \u201ccredible\u201d \u201cyou are hired!\u201d. God desires all of us and the rich young man to be his \u201chired\u201d – in fact, more than that, to be his children with the right to heavenly inheritance – Paul said this earlier in Gal 4:7. Being able to \u201cself control\u201d has to be taken in the context of a result of growing in Christ. Rather than a way to become a \u201chired\u201d, showing self-control is a proof of a worthy \u201chired\u201d and blessed child of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I stared at it for a good few seconds, my mind working out why I would deserve it. When the taxi stopped, I paid the driver and said there\u2019s a pound coin just there. Looking back, I think we surprised each other: he didn\u2019t want the 4p and rounded down the fare to a whole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-knowing-god-outcome","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}