There's a Greek word that appears only a handful of times in the New Testament: egkrates. Its scarcity, though, is inversely proportionate to its importance.
Egkrates is often translated as "self-control", "self-discipline", or "self-mastery".
To show self-control's importance, I need only point to its appearance in Galatians 5:23 where it is listed as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. There it keeps company with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness.
That's the Big Leagues.
But we don't give self-control a lot of attention. In fact, most of the time if we do mention it, we are making a joke about how little we have.
Like Oscar Wilde's famous crack: "I can resist anything but temptation."
But here's the odd thing about self-control: While publicly we joke about our lack of self-control, inwardly we fret over it.
A lack of self-control fosters feelings of guilt, shame, and failure.
We can't avoid this question: If self-control is, in fact, a fruit of the Spirit, what does it say about us when we don't have it?
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