Character Helps Self-Control

Character Helps – Self-Control December 2001

A publication of the Faith Committee of The Character Council of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Reproduction and adaptation is encouraged

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Text contributed by Bob and Trisha Hicks Missionaries, Helping Hands for Him, Panama City, FL

Self-Control vs Self-Indulgence “Rejecting wrong desires and doing what is right” “But the fruit of the (Holy) Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..." Galatians 5:22- 23

Five “I Wills”

"I will not act impulsively." An impulsive act is a sudden, spontaneous act that is usually unpremeditated and based on natural tendencies other than rational. It might, for example, be making a spur of the moment purchase that is not in the budget or outside of one's diet, or spontaneously inserting an unplanned activity in a schedule which violates a commitment to an appointment already on the schedule. When we act impulsively and do not control ourselves to first think through our actions and possible consequences, we run the risk of not rejecting wrong desires and not doing what is right. “Let all things be done decently and in order” (I Corinthians 14:40). Let us ask the Lord to help us stop and think before acting impulsively, and to control ourselves to do what is right. This will bring blessings to the Lord, others and ourselves. "When a man's ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him "(Proverbs 16:7).

"I will not equate desires with rights." A right is something to which we morally have a just claim. A desire is something for which we wish or hope. To drive 40 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour may be a desire but it is not a right; to receive gifts or friendship from another may be desires but they are not rights; to have a long life from God may be a desire but it is not a right. Controlling our self means to reject and abandon all wrong desires, and do what is right. It also means to treat right desires as wishes to be hoped, but not things to be demanded as rights. Gratefully the Lord loves us, knows our needs and rights, and provides us with many blessings daily: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness... ” (Lamentations 3:22-23). And specifically, He cares about our desires: "Delight yourself in [pleasing the] Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). The wonderful thing is that, with both this life and the life to come in view, He will help us filter out desires that would not be best for us; and, for the rest, superintend the best timing for their fulfillment. Let us each delight ourself in the Lord.

1 "I will set my own limits." A limit is a point where something ends, a boundary, or restriction. Limits are important to successful self-control. Self-control is controlling our self (mind, will, emotions, behavior) to do what is right - what is pleasing to the Lord and in keeping with the Bible. Throughout life each of us will always be lured with temptations to think or do things that are wrong. Everyone has weaknesses. It may be overeating, overspending, gossiping, or other weaknesses. If in such cases we set limits beforehand on our actions, then abiding by those limits can reduce or eliminate the likelihood of doing wrong. For example, for overeating we might set a limit to never have seconds, or desert; for overspending we might set a budget limit on our spending, or limits on particular stores to be visited. Think about areas of vulnerability to temptation in your life, and set limits that will help you keep from giving in, so that you can succeed in controlling yourself to do what is right - and help develop the character quality of self-control.

"I will see my anger as a sign that something is wrong in me." Anger is like fire, when it gets too hot someone can get burned or damaged by it. Anger is an emotion we experience when we encounter what we perceive to be wrong. God experiences it (Psalms 7:11 KJV), and has given the emotion to us as a blessing to alert us to unrighteousness and injustice, and to energize us to respond to stop the evil, as for example, in the September 11 attack of terrorist evildoers on the United States. But unfortunately, distorted anger can be stimulated by an incorrect perception of wrong - when in fact no moral wrong was actually done. For example, getting angry over misplacing something, or being stopped for speeding, or losing money in the stock market, is distorted anger. Anger is your signal to step back from a situation or an individual, wait until the physiological reactions designed to energize you have subsided so you can address the matter from reason and not emotion, and then investigate to see if it is valid anger (a moral wrong was done) or distorted anger. If it is distorted anger, you need to change your perspective. Perhaps God is using it to bless you by addressing a growing edge in your life, such as maybe patience or self-control or selfishness. If a moral wrong, decide to either forgive or address the matter. Controlling your will and mind is key to controlling your response to anger. Count to 10 or 100 or take a walk until the emotion of anger subsides and you can proceed with reason. "Be angry but do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). Enjoy the joy, peace and freedom self-control brings.

"I will walk away from things that aren’t right." Our natural inclination is to be curious. Many times we linger too long in a situation until something unfortunate happens. If we complement self-control with discretion, which is understanding the deeper reasons why things happen, we can escape many temptations and wrongful thoughts and actions. When things displeasing to the Lord are present, walk away. When conversation, attitudes or actions are out of control, walk away. When anything appears evil or of a bad report, walk away. Sometimes, there’s never a second chance to do right. "Tis bold to stand with virtuous might, yet walk away from things not right".

Self-Control in Nature Inside a small den measuring about three feet high and five feet wide lies a mother black bear and her two one-week old cubs. The cubs are hardly bigger than a tea cup and look nothing like black bears. Blind and helpless, they lay nestled in their mother’s fur. The cub’s survival depends upon the preparations their mother made the previous fall. Weighing several hundred pounds and eating as much as eighteen pounds of food a day (equivalent to 72 quarter pound hamburgers!), the bear at that time suddenly stopped eating - a drastic change! This comes naturally for the black bear, but for us it takes self-control. And at that time, even though the black bear wasn’t sleepy, it found a suitable den. Instead of continuing to enjoy her freedom in the woods, she laid down in this tight den and went to sleep - for up to seven months, without eating. For the black bear this is natural, but for us it would 2 take great self-control. The next spring, because of the self-control of the mother, two five-pound balls of fur tumbled out of the den, healthy and fat. Likewise in our lives, there are many instances where we can benefit others by successfully practicing self-control and doing what is right.

Self-Control in History As a gentle sea breeze was blowing across her face, Abigail Adams* and her daughter watched Boston Harbor fade slowly away into the horizon. The two were sailing to Europe to be reunited with Abigail’s husband John, and her son, John Quincy. These men had been in Europe for more than seven years on government business. Even though he was only ten years old when he left, John Quincy was needed at home to be a man. Abigail chose to lay aside her personal desire to have her son stay at home because she realized that the experience that he would receive in Europe would be invaluable to him later in his life.

The voyage was most unpleasant. The putrid odors, the vile filthiness, and the rampaging seasickness were more than most people could bear. At one point, she became so angry at her surroundings that she didn’t know what she was going to do. Realizing that she had the wrong perspective and that complaining would do nothing to better the situation, Abigail chose instead to work to improve her surroundings. By the time the ship reached Europe, it had been scrubbed from bow to stern and sweet fragrances replaced the stench that had run rampant. What started as a month of misery ended up quite enjoyable due to a simple change in her perspective. She could have acted impulsively and remained in her misery. Instead, putting her rights and desires aside, she purposed to busy herself with the matter at hand. Her anger was a sign of her discontent. She remedied this by applying her hand to the task of making the situation better. As a result of her actions, the trip ended with a pleasant memory not only for her daughter and herself, but also for all who traveled with them.

*Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was wife of John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, and mother of John Quincy Adams, 6th President

Self-Control at Home The home is perhaps the hardest place to develop self-control. By God's blessed design the home is meant to be a place of refuge, encouragement, and preparation. The sense of refuge, however, can not only prompt us to let down our guard for the external world, it can sometimes also temp us to relax our self-control with family members. But home is also the place where daily preparation and encouragement for life take place. So ask the Lord to help you control your self to do right. Act thoughtfully and not impulsively. Don't react to anger in the heat of the emotion, but wait until reason can prevail and then act in love. Set limits for yourself on your thoughts and actions to minimize possibilities for acting wrongly. In practicing self-control you will please the Lord, and you will bless your family and yourself - both through your behavior and through the demonstration of the power of the Lord in your life.

Self-Control at Work The workplace needs people of self-control. Managers, owners, employees, customers, suppliers, and family members will all benefit greatly by people who control themselves to do what is right! By people - Who think things through carefully before impulsively speaking their mind, or acting, or directing others. Who consider others and are not pre-occupied with pushing for their own desires as if they were rights. Who carefully control their responses to anger - whose occasions can be many in the workplace. Who refuse to be party to conversations or jokes or attitudes or activities that aren't right. Who demonstrate the power of God in the workplace to control oneself to do right - in the midst of sometimes widespread wrong doings and great pressures of temptation! People who practice self- control in the workplace can benefit many! Will you choose to be such a person!

3 Self-Control at Church The church can have a very important place in our development and practice of controlling our self (mind, will, emotions, behavior, conscience) to do right. Through its teachings, music and behavior, it can help transform our mind and can calibrate and reinforce our conscience with the values of Jesus Christ and the Bible which define what is right. Our conscience can then reliably warn us when our thoughts, contemplated actions, and physical sensors approach things that are wrong, so we can control our self to do what is right. Also, the church can help us understand the mission of the devil to deter us from controlling our self to do what is right, and how to be filled with God's power to succeed in our self control. And members of the church community can encourage us through their examples, their encouragement, and prayers. Then, as a member of the community, we can in turn encourage others by our practice, encouragement and prayers for them.

Self-Control in the Community The world witnessed great tragedy and loss in the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11. On the one hand, we saw the horrific misery caused by a handful of men lacking in the self-control to do what is right. And on the other hand, we saw the self control of many selfless and heroic people dedicated to rescuing and supporting their fellow man. This is a momentous time in the nation and world. And it is also a very strategic time of opportunity for Christians and the church. For through the power of the Holy Spirit in our life, and through our practice of self control to do what is right, we can bring great blessings to many - care for the injured and bereaved, relief to the world through resolute dealing of justice to the evildoers, freedom to enslaved people, food for the starving, and others. Most importantly, we can through our self-control, verbal witness and demonstration of the power of the Lord in our lives, encourage the lost, the needy, the frightened, the confused, the misled - indeed everyone -to turn their eyes upon Jesus for hope, salvation, and comfort.

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"In the Heart" Contributed by John F. Pierce Character Council Faith Committee Chairman, Cincinnati, OH

Self-control is keeping the complete self under control: the mind and its thoughts, the will and its decisions, the emotions and its feelings, the body and its behavior, and the conscience and its values. Control is the idea of governing the self in keeping with the standard of doing what is right, much like the cruise control of an automobile governs vehicle speed to maintain it at the desired "standard" set by the operator. As in governing the automobile, control sometimes calls for energizing the self to keep up to the standard, as, for example, in overcoming laziness. Often, however, control must be focused on restraining the self against desires, impulses, and passions (especially sensual appetites) that tempt it away from its standard of doing what is right. Governing or controlling our self to do what is right raises two important questions: What is the standard of right? How do we go about controlling our self?

The Standard of Right The character quality Self-Control is closely related to the character quality Virtue, which is conforming to a standard of right. Both are related to keeping this standard. The difference, if any, is the focus of Self-Control more on the moment-by-moment governing of the self.

The standard of right is God. More specifically, the standard of right is the character and conduct of Jesus Christ (and God's Word, to which He conformed). Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man: perfect humanity - humanity at its best - God's intended design for all human beings. God's command to "Be holy as I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16) is thus the directive to become like Jesus in character and conduct. (See Character Helps - Virtue for fuller discussion.)

The Process of Controlling

Self-Control is the process of keeping the self governed or controlled in its moment by moment, daily moral decisions and actions in accord with the character and conduct of Jesus Christ. In considering this process, it is fitting to first remind ourselves that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives (John 10:10, Jeremiah 29:11). And in His love for us He desires for us to practice and grow in each of His character qualities because He knows this is best for us, and also creates many benefits to others. (See Benefits Section elsewhere in this publication.) And in His love, He has equipped us with each of the wonderful components of self: mind, will, emotions, behavior and conscience. These enable us to richly enjoy Him and life. In giving us these He also gives us the freedom to choose - freedom to choose to follow after Him and His Standard, or to not - and therefore the need for self-control.

This challenge of self-control is magnified by the fact there are strong forces tempting us to not follow after the Standard. Satan (the devil), according to Scripture, is an angel cast out of heaven because of his pride in wanting to be like God (Isaiah 14:12-15). Today Satan (and his cohorts) roam throughout the world seeking by any means to cause people to worship and follow him, to rob God in every way he can of allegiance and honor, and to mar and destroy God's creatures and creation. (John 8:44, 1 Peter 5:8, 1 Thessalonians 3:5.) Taxing our self-control, Satan will be trying: to blur or blind us to the reality of Jesus Christ and His Standard for us; to temp us into believing that one thought or one deed departing from the Standard won't matter; to try to deceive us into thinking the pleasures experienced in exercising a passion for overeating, or immoral sex, or impulsive spending will bring no harm to anyone and have no downside effects; and by any means, to lure us away from keeping our control of 5 self on the Standard. His influence is powerful (Ephesians 6:10-12). But the good news for the Christian is, that by being filled with the Holy Spirit and turning control over to Him, we can have the power of God in our life to help us control all aspects of our life successfully (1 John 4:4). (See Character Helps - Enthusiasm for how to be filled with the Holy Spirit.)

[Note: Sin is knowingly disobeying or displeasing God. Temptation or enticement to sin is not sin; sin is yielding to temptation.]

A wonderful gift for aiding in self-control is the conscience. The conscience is a sensor like a home smoke detector. It is designed to sound an alarm warning us of thoughts, decisions, actions, emotions and things sensed by our five senses that are wrong by its standards, so we can make an appropriate response. It is crucial that this sensor be calibrated to the standards of Jesus Christ. This calibration can be corrected and reinforced by prayerfully reflecting on these Standards from Scripture and receiving them. If the warning signals put out by the conscience are repeatedly rejected or ignored, the conscience can become de-sensitized to its standard, and fail to put out reliable or any signals of warning. Our will is in charge of the decisions both to maintain its calibration and to heed its signals. (And Satan will be trying to deter both.)

The will is in charge of decisions. In addition to those just mentioned in conjunction with the conscience, it is responsible for what thoughts the mind thinks, and what actions the body takes by way of speech, actions, bodily expressions and other behavior. Controlling the will is critical to self- control. The will is also responsible for our responses to emotions. Emotions are reactions to thoughts and events that we experience as subjective feelings, such as love, hate, fear, and anger. While we do not have control over the emotion itself, we can learn to control our thoughts and our actions with which we respond. How we respond is key to self-control, but control may not be simple. Consider anger, for example. As discussed by Gary Chapman*, anger can be described as the emotion of displeasure and usually antagonism we feel whenever we encounter what we perceive to be wrong. God experiences anger: "...God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalms 7:11 KJV). This is a logical response of a holy and loving God to unrighteousness or injustice; His response to anger is to take loving action to seek to stop the evil, and to redeem the evildoer. Anger is not sinful or evil; it is part of us in being made in His image. And anger is a blessing, in that it alerts us to unrighteousness and injustice and energizes us to respond. But there is an important difference between valid anger and distorted anger. Vailid anger is stimulated by moral wrong; it is righteous indignation. Distorted anger is stimulated by an incorrect perception of wrong; no moral wrong was actually done, e.g a flat tire causing me frustration, my supervisor hurting my pride in lovingly informing me I was lax on my job, or an unfulfilled desire or disappointment. Chapman points out there are always 4 stages: (a) a stimulating event (b) an interpretation of that event (c) the emotion of anger, and (d) physiological changes take place in the body to ready it for action (e.g. surges of adrenalin, and changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and lung functions). At this point it is crucial to self-control to wait 10 to 100 seconds or take a walk to restrain immediate words and actions until the body returns to a state where rationality can prevail. Then take time to rationally locate the cause of the anger: what did the person(s) do or say, how has it morally wronged me or others? Is it a moral wrong or did I have a mistaken perception (and perhaps God was using it to address a growing edge in my life, such as patience, self-control, or selfishness)? And then determine the proper response: "Be angry but do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). If it is a case of a mistaken perception, humbly and gratefully accept God's training; if a moral wrong, either consciously decide to forgive and overlook the matter, or lovingly confront the person(s) in an effort to seek resolution (Luke 17:3-4). Control of self may not always be simple, but it is vitally important.

6 As we have seen, self-control is controlling ourselves in keeping with the character and conduct of Jesus Christ - and thereby creating all the resulting, significant blessings. We have seen there will be powerful temptations to lure us from achieving that goal, but the Christian can have access to the infinite power of God to succeed. We have seen that the conscience has been provided which, if kept calibrated, will warn us of temptations or decisions taking us out of control. And the will has been provided to control our decisions of thought, responses to emotions, and behavior. In closing it is important to note that in addition to responding to events which occur, control of self also includes erecting safeguards to protect the self from events before a temptation occurs, and having exit strategies in case a temptation slips by. These safeguards will vary by individual, based on the individual's perceived or real vulnerabilities. For the mind this might include taking actions to control what thoughts enter our minds and what we think about, such as taking measures to not view pornography on the Internet, in magazines, or in other ways. For sensual temptations it means erecting appropriate barriers to minimize temptations, such as acting to cease and not develop close emotional relationships at work with members of the opposite sex, or committing to not sample a food or beverage that may compromise a diet or trigger an addiction. And should a temptation unexpectedly occur, always be ready to run away from it!

Self-control is an important key to abundant life! So let us be filled with the Holy Spirit and live moment by moment in victory!

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)

And as we practice self-control in our moment-by-moment decisions and actions, habits and the character quality of self-control will develop. **

------* Chapman, Gary, The Other Side of Love; Handling Anger In A Godly Way, Moody Press, Chicago, 1999. ** See Character Helps - Virtue for general discussion of the "right thoughts - right actions - right habits - right character - right destiny" process.

7 ******************** What Benefits Does a Christian Create When Practicing the Monthly Character Quality?

Benefits to God

Brings God honor by demonstrating to Him our love, trust, and obedience in trying to develop the character qualities of Jesus Christ as He directed us to do.

Brings God pleasure as Father in seeing us grow up into the likeness of His Son Jesus (Who was perfect humanity and His design for us) so that we can become and do all He created us to be and do, both in this life and the life to come.

Brings God love as we come into a more intimate, personal relationship with Jesus.

Benefits to Others Brings benefits to others as they personally experience directly the effects of the Christian’s practice of good character, e.g. the energy of a smile, wholeheartedness in helping, keeping of promises, respect, truthfulness, etc.

Informs others by demonstrating what the character qualities and benefits look like in real life.

Encourages others by seeing a real person who believes in the importance of practicing good character, and by seeing that a real person can in fact develop and practice good character Benefits to the Christian Brings joy in pleasing God, the highest priority of the Christian’s life.

Promotes intimacy in the Christian’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Contributes to the Christian’s receiving love, strength, wisdom, other blessings from the Lord.

Helps the Christian grow in character qualities of Jesus Christ .

Develops value for the Christian both for this life and the life to come.

Enhances the Christian’s self-acceptance, self-confidence and self-satisfaction.

8 Increases the Christian’s productivity and accomplishments. Improves the relationships of the Christian with other people. Helps the Christian reach his or her full potential. Brings joy to the Christian in pleasing and receiving affirmation of other people who are important to him or her, e.g. spouse, family, pastor, friends, co-wonders, group members, etc. Brings joy to the Christian in helping to benefit spouse, family, and others. Brings joy to the Christian in helping to build a better community, workplace, and world.