Self Control- The platform

Our pastor Tommy gave the an amazing sermon this morning on self control.
He referenced a point in Ecclesiates 2 where Solomon says, " I denied myself nothing my eyes desired", that's how the world lives today, we don't deny ourselves of anything, we want what we want and we seek to get it, there's no self control. We consume ourselves with with wanting more and more, the things we desire begin to control our lives.

We've been going through a series on fruit of the spirit , and he explained how you can't just "make yourself" have more fruit. Like you can't just say, "I need to make myself more patient!" Or "I need to get more peace in my life", but that we get those things by living in the spirit. The closer your relationship with God and the more you live in the spirit the more fruit you'll grow. Today with self control, he explained that self control is the platform for all the other fruit. You have to have self control to live in the spirit, then in return get more self control and more fruit! We have to learn to say no to our flesh, and yes to the spirit. If we live for the flesh, we are rejecting the spirit of God! Living in the flesh is living for ourselves, it always comes back to satisfying "ME", instead of God.
This made sense to me. The world is all about , me, me, me. You hear it everywhere from everyone, it's so hard to get yourself out of that way of fleshy thinking and think and act in the spirit. The Christian life is not easy, Tommy reminded us of this verse~ Luke 13:24 (New King James Version)
24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
An interesting point about the word "strive" is that if you look it up in the bible dictionary it comes up "agony", so we are to be in agony to enter through the narrow gate! Self control is hard! But it's so important to kill the flesh as a Christian. Quit worrying about yourself so much, live in the spirit and be fruitful!! I want this so badly. When I don't feel like being self controlled I have to keep in mind how much sweeter my life will be when I'm a tree bearing lots of fruit. How much better God is than anything else. :)