On Self-Control

We'll continue with a few more posts from Douglas Bond from his book, Hold Fast in a Broken World. Today, we'll talk about self-control.

Self-controlled [men] take sin seriously. They don't see how close to the edge of the cliff they can cavort. They're aware that the devil and sin are nothing to flirt with. They avoid sin, it's occasions, and its companions because they know how devious the devil can be.

German writer Heinrich Heine explored this in a poem that begins, "I called the devil and he came." But he didn't have horns and a flame-red jumpsuit like cartoonist Gary Larsen's devil always has. "He was not hideous.../ But a genial man with charming ways." Wise [men] don't flirt with the devil and sin because they know that the devil will outwit them. He's called the deceiver for a reason. Therefore, wise [men] know they must be self-controlled, or they will be devil-controlled.

But it's not only the devil. It's a three-way conspiracy, with the world and your own flesh joining eagerly to secure your soul for hell. They conspire to normalize sin and earthly things so that you, at the last, lose all appetite for heaven. They want righteousness to seem odd and sin to seem normal to you.

Covenantal believers are not bound for hell, so the devil's influence in their lives will not doom them to hell, but the devil will seek to undermine your righteousness with temptation to sin. Bond is right: Don't play with sin or temptation. Run from it rather than think you can withstand it. Most likely, you won't be able to and you'll have to live with the consequences of your actions, even as a believer.