Good morning people whose lives reflect the God who is your all in all.

Galatians 5:25 NIV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

The final part of the one fruit of the one Holy Spirit is self-control. It is not last because it is least important. There are no less important parts of who God is.

The Holy Spirit is self-controlled. If He wasn’t, we wouldn’t exist.

Because God is holy, anything unholy is consumed by His holiness. Outside of Christ, this includes you and me too. But praise God that the Spirit of God is self-controlled!

God is not soft on sin – He is big on people. So much so, that He is patient and kind because His overriding desire is salvation for every person. This is why God is self-controlled. This is why we are called to be self-controlled in the Spirit.

As we conclude this little series on the fruit of the Spirit, I am more aware than I was previously that all parts of the one fruit truly are inseparable. A lack of self-control is evidence that the other eight parts of the nature of God are also not present in their fullness.

Therefore, what is the key to being self-controlled?

It is the same key as all the other parts: Be in the Spirit.

This is where we must land again. We are either in the Spirit or we are not. We can’t be partially in the Spirit. God is either ruling in our lives, or He is not. God is either Lord of all, or He’s not Lord at all.

May our lives accurately reflect the One who is our all in all. Amen.