All Season Fruit Part 8

Greetings Dear Reader,

For much of my thirty’s and forty’s I was badly over weight. After careful discipline over the last three years I am close to the size and weight I wish. The issue was always the same for me: self-control. The weight loss is the result of the same thing. I chose to eat less, eat better, and to move more. I chose to set quiet steady goals and work toward them.

Many of the things that are commanded for me to do in Scripture are designed to produce this particular fruit of the spirit. I am required to control what I do, say, feel, and think. I am not to be an automaton nor am I to be a slave to a system of rules. I am to control my intake of food and drink. I am to monitor how I express my emotions to others. I am required to monitor and master my alcohol intake. I must never give place to hatred, bitterness, or envy.

If I am following Christ then I will exercise self-control as a natural outgrowth of my love, patience, and kindness. I will not over indulge in anything. When Paul tells us not to be drunk it is not the drunkenness itself that is a problem. It is the excess that is condemned. It is a lack of self-control that is wrong and leads to so much of my sin. In choosing to follow Christ I am choosing to limit some of my options by controlling behaviors and responses. When I over eat, give place to my anger, drink too much, or am impatient, I am for the moment choosing not to follow Christ. It really is that simple.

Wishing you joy and peace in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a home owner. He brings new and old things out of his treasure store."