Self-control is the ability to control one’s emotions and feelings and desires especially in difficult situations.
I know I need help in this area. The enemy kills this fruit in our life because we have no control. Many times we speak before we think. We just blow up and that generally creates more problems.
Sometimes we just have to be still. We all have difficult situations in our lives that literally break us at our very core.
Some hurts that we have held a lifetime cause you to react emotionally, they kill this fruit before it can ever take root in our heart.
I think many people think they give God everything, yet they hold on to their hurts and emotions.
So many times we get hurt by well-meaning people in church. Church hurt is real and so many people don’t want to talk about it.
I have experienced it on several levels. I have loved people through church hurt. I have been crushed by church hurt and I had even loved through the hurt.
As I was getting ready this morning the Lord shared something with me, some people that were hurt by me couldn’t connect with me completely again, once I was restored in faith. I have often wondered why, and God told me, because they still had to heal from their hurt. For so many years I only thought about my hurt, my pain. This hit me like a ton of bricks. There were people who walked and worked in ministry with me and when I fell they were shaken at their very core. Some have recovered and been restored others have fallen by the way side. My heart was so heavy for them today. I just began to pray God heal any hurts caused by me either intentionally or unintentionally.
I have to learn to get my emotions under control and be subjected to the Lord.
If we would just let go and release all the hurt; we would begin to heal.
We have to give up our right to be hurt.
We even have to give up the need for closure. We may never get the explanation or the apology we want, but we can not move forward with God if we are holding on to the past. The past holds hurt, bitterness and kills the fruits in our life.
Romans 7:18
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Proverbs 25:27-28
It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to search out matters that are too deep. Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
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. Have nothing to do with such people.
Don’t let the enemy come and steal the fruit that God has planted in the garden of your heart. Water the fruits that God planted, feed those fruits. Pull out the weeds that Satan is trying to put in your garden. Guard your heart, cover your mind, give God control of every part of your life including your emotions.
Make a list of Fruit of the Spirit you see developing in your life.
Now make a list of the fruit killers you see in your garden.
Father I ask you to reach down into the gardens of our hearts. Pull out what you don’t want in there, I release all the pain and hurt of my past. God take control of my emotions. Allow me to exhibit the fruits of the spirit in my life, and help me to recognize others’ needs around me. Let me be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as he guides me. I ask you to shine through me so that others will see Jesus in me. Help me change the attitudes I need to change. Help me walk daily in your presence.
