Imagine a young man, energetic and hot-headed, known in his neighbourhood for his rowdiness and his insistence on having his own way. Together with his older brother, he runs a thriving business on the coast. In his mid-twenties, both brothers come to faith in Christ and are discipled by the same gifted teacher, yet that rough, combative spirit still dominates the younger man. He is forever in the middle of arguments about leadership. Then, years later, his older brother is violently and unjustly murdered. The younger man knows the killer. Formerly, he would have sought immediate revenge. But something has changed. He is now known not as a hothead, but as a man who stands unwaveringly on principle while ruling his spirit with calm resolve. That younger brother is the apostle John—whose older brother, James, was martyred by Herod.
Jesus himself gave the brothers Zebedee their nickname: “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). In Luke 9:54, they wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village. Yet history remembers John as the apostle of love. What produced that transformation? It was, of course, the Spirit of God working in him—the same Spirit who produces self-control in every believer.
The Explanation of the Harvest
What precisely does Paul mean by “self-control”? The Greek term is relatively rare in the New Testament, but its meaning is clear: the ability to exercise complete mastery over one’s own desires and actions. Its root denotes power or lordship—the same root translated “dominion” in 1 Peter 4:11 and “strength” in Luke 1:51. Plato called it “self-mastery.” William Barclay described the secular Greek ideal as the virtue of a ruler “who never lets his private interests influence the government of his people”—a person so master of himself that he is fit to serve others.
Paul illustrates the concept in 1 Corinthians 9:25: “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” A favourite verse in this regard is Proverbs 25:28: “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” A city without walls is defenceless; it can be controlled by any outside force. So it is with the intemperate person—ruled by appetites rather than ruling them. But biblical self-control is not a personality trait. It is something supernaturally produced by the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. As the life of John demonstrates, it can become a reality even in the most naturally hot-headed individual.
The Imitation of the Harvest
Like every aspect of the Spirit’s fruit, self-control has an imitation—a counterfeit that is plastic and tasteless because its motivation is self rather than God. Consider the story of Absalom. After his sister Tamar was violated by Amnon, Absalom said nothing to him—neither good nor bad—but he hated Amnon, and for two full years he plotted his brother’s death (2 Samuel 13:22). Some might admire Absalom’s apparent restraint, but Scripture makes it plain there was nothing godly about it. His self-control served his own bitterness, not the glory of God.
This is the danger of fleshly self-discipline: It ultimately leads to self-righteousness. A person may overcome a destructive habit through sheer willpower and human programmes, and we may genuinely admire that effort. Yet self-mastery that leaves Christ out of the picture only cements a person deeper into self-reliance. Paul’s temperance is not rooted in self; it is rooted in the eternal Spirit of God.
The Application of the Harvest
First, being temperate is synonymous with being a Christian. Because we are under a master who was self-controlled—one who was “in every respect … tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15)—we are expected to be temperate. When Paul presented the gospel to Felix, Luke summarises it as reasoning about “righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgement” (Acts 24:25). Self-control is part of the gospel message, because the gospel so changes a person that he is able to control what once controlled him.
Second, self-control enables us to walk in this world without being shaped by it. This touches every area of life: physical appetites, sexual temptation, the tongue, the use of time, and personal ambitions. Joseph is a model for sexual self-control: When Potiphar’s wife seized him, “he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house” (Genesis 39:12). Regarding the tongue, James 3:2 tells us that “if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man.” Proverbs 13:3 reinforces this: “Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” Even our use of time requires Spirit-led discipline—choosing to prioritise the Lord’s Day and the fellowship of the local church over the relentless demands of a busy schedule.
Third, being temperate is most often about choosing the best over the good. The believer is constantly choosing between things that are not inherently wrong—more income versus more time with family, physical exercise versus time in prayer, reading widely versus reading the Scriptures. None of these alternatives are sinful in themselves, but self-control under the Spirit means consistently choosing what most glorifies God and best serves our growth in him.
The Cultivation of the Harvest
What is required to cultivate self-control? At the most basic level, your aim must be right. An athlete does not decide to pursue the Olympics a month before the event. The goal shapes everything years in advance. So it is in the Christian life. If your aim is Christlikeness, you will exercise Christlike self-control in pursuit of it. As John Sanderson observed, we exercise control over ourselves when we have a clear ambition or aim.
Perseverance is the great challenge. Many believers begin well and then falter when spiritual winter sets in. Paul’s antidote is found in Philippians 3: He kept the goal of knowing Christ constantly before him and pressed on without ceasing toward the mark. We must apply genuine effort to our thought life, heeding 2 Corinthians 10:5: “Take every thought captive to obey Christ.” John Calvin described the human heart as an idol factory. We must daily cast down its productions and fix our minds on Christ crucified.
Paul’s testimony in Philippians 4:11–13 anchors us: “I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content…. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Whatever area God has identified in your life as needing self-control, his word to you is this: There is hope. You can change, not by willpower alone, but through the power of Jesus Christ.
The Manifestation of the Harvest
Scripture offers us a gallery of examples. Joseph endured betrayal, false accusation, and years of imprisonment, yet learned to submit to God rather than become embittered. Moses, like John, was controlled in his youth by an explosive temper—but, through God’s dealings with him, he became, in the main, a man of remarkable self-restraint. Peter, who once drew a sword in violent defence of Jesus, is seen in Acts responding to hostility with gracious gospel proclamation.
None of these, however, is more than a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. His aim was to glorify the Father in all things, and he never deviated from it—through wilderness temptation, through the misunderstanding of his disciples, through the agony of Gethsemane, and through the cross itself. In John 17:4 he prayed: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” He succeeded—and he calls us to follow. He expects us to acknowledge him as Lord over our appetites and desires, to take up our cross daily, and to walk in the Spirit so that we do not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). This is the harvest of self-control—and by his grace, it can be ours.
About the author
Doug Van Meter is the pastor-teacher of Brackenhurst Baptist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is married to Jill and together they have five daughters, four sons-in-in-law and a growing number of grandchildren.
