Galatians 5:22-24 “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (23) gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. (24) And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Walking free from sin does not happen overnight, and the reason for that is because there is a specific fruit of the spirit that is needed in order to walk in this manner. And so, just as fruit in the natural does not grow overnight so it is in the spirit. The fruit of the spirit that I am referring to is the fruit of self-control, which is the last of the nine fruit listed in the passage of scripture quoted above. And so as believers grow stronger in their spirits the fruit of self control will also develop, resulting in their being able to exercise more and more self control over the sinful desires of their flesh. Many times Christians speak of dying to self. The bible never teaches us to die to self however, for we cannot die to self. Those who say that we should die to self recognise that there is something sinful about themselves but don’t understand what it is, because they do not understand the difference between their spirits and their flesh. We know that what they are encountering as being sinful is their flesh, and so without realising it they are trying to die to their flesh. The only time that believers can die to their flesh however is when they depart this life to be with the Lord Jesus. Until that time every believer remains in the flesh and their sinful flesh remains alive. Christians that try to die to self always continue in sin, because they are trying to do something that is not taught in the word of God, thereby excluding the power of God through which we are able to overcome sin in the flesh. You also hear Christians say that He (speaking of Jesus) must increase and they must decrease. When believers make that statement they are quoting what John the Baptist said with regards to his ministry drawing to a close as the ministry of Jesus began (John 3:30). And so they take John’s statement out of context to mean that Jesus in them must increase, while they must decrease. Again, these believers do not understand the difference between their spirits and their flesh. And so without realising it, they are trying to get their flesh to decrease, or rather the influence of their flesh to decrease. Nevertheless the bible never teaches the concept of the believer decreasing in any way, including in their flesh, on the contrary the bible teaches the believer to rather grow strong in spirit, i.e. increase. And so all of these various religious statements may sound nice, but have absolutely no impact in overcoming the indulgences of the flesh. And so years later you find those same Christians still saying the same things, but never overcoming sin in their lives. The reason for that is because they are trying to do something that the bible does not teach, and so God is not involved.
1 Corinthians 9:27 “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
So what does the bible teach on the subject of keeping our flesh under control? The Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul teaches the church to make no provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts (Romans 13:14), and as quoted in the passage of scripture above the apostle Paul teaches us to discipline our bodies and bring them into subjection. And so we do all of that by walking in the fruit of the spirit called self-control. In other words we do not extend any “grace” to our flesh, but rather we keep it under strict control. Someone once said that our flesh is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. And so we make sure that our flesh remains our servant and give it no opportunity to become our master.
Acts 24:24-25 “And after some days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. (25) Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, "Go away for now; when I have a convenient time, I will call for you.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the apostle Paul links righteousness with self-control, and the reason he does that is because we cannot walk in righteousness unless we exercise self-control. It is one thing to be made the righteousness of God, but it is another thing entirely to walk in that righteousness. The spirit of every born-again believer has been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21), but not every believer practises righteousness in their daily lives. Nevertheless believers who do practice righteousness do so by denying the desires of their flesh, which is where self-control comes in. And so we can see that when the bible refers to the spiritual fruit of self-control, it is referring to the control that we exercise over our flesh.
1 Corinthians 7:5 “Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
We have stated at the start of this section that our spirits do not produce the fruit of self control overnight, and the above quoted passage of scripture confirms that truth for us. In this passage the apostle Paul teaches us that Satan is able to tempt believers who have a lack of self-control. And so we see that baby believers’ fall into this category, for their spirits have not yet matured enough to produce strong fruit of self-control. Sadly it is possible for Christians that have been saved for decades, to still be baby believers and to have never developed the fruit of self-control in their lives, and you see that evidenced by their carnal behaviour of envy, strife and divisiveness which they display.
Michael E.B. Maher
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