This is part 10 of a 10-part series. View the entire series here.
“If you love Me, obey My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.” – John 14:15-17a NLT
The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants
If following Jesus feels like an endless list of rules, it’s time to broaden your understanding of Christian living. Jesus doesn’t call you to be one of His disciples to take over your actions––He calls you so that He can take over your heart.
In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet tells us, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Your heart is deceptive. It tells you that what you want is what’s best for you. But more often than not, the natural desires of your heart will lead you astray and leave you empty. So what does all this have to do with self-control…?
Our Advocate and Guide
You may be thinking, I can’t help wanting what I want. Or…can you? While it’s tempting to view desires as a natural impulse outside of our control, the Bible tells us that the Spirit renews our mind.
Think of it as rewiring how our thoughts work. Before we placed our faith in Jesus, our minds were focused on fulfilling our immediate wants. But through trusting in Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, we actually find that self-control doesn’t start with the hands. It starts with the heart.
It’s one thing to control our actions––to hold ourselves back from doing what we know is wrong. But if we dig deeper, we discover that true self-control happens in our hearts.
Take for example Jesus’ lesson on murder. While many would equate this to a physical act, Jesus tells us that if we hate someone in our hearts, we’ve already committed murder. In other words, He’s telling us that having self-control over our actions isn’t enough. We need to have self-control over the desires of our hearts.
Growing in Self-Control
Don’t look at the fruit of self-control as a means to control your actions. See it as the beautiful process of giving your heart over to Jesus. Allow the Spirit to fill you with truth as He renews your heart and mind.
As you grow closer to God, you’ll find that self-control isn’t about stopping yourself from doing what you want; it’s about discovering what your soul really needed all along.
