DON’T BE A LOOSE CANNON (Exercise Control Over Your Compulsions)

DON’T BE A LOOSE CANNON
(Exercise Control Over Your Compulsions)

Proverbs 25:28
[28]He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

Someone once wrote me saying, “Pastor Chris, how do I get over addictions and compulsions? I keep speaking to them to leave yet I still feel tempted to do the same things. Please help!” Firstly, you’re supposed to be speaking to yourself, not to addictions and compulsions. Talking to them all year long won’t change a thing. Secondly, you’ve got to add some qualities (such as temperance) to your faith; this will help you gain the mastery over any addiction.
The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:23 lists temperance as a feature of your recreated human spirit, and the word “temperance” comes from the Greek word “Egkrateia,” which means “restraint exercised over one’s own impulses, emotions or desires.” It means to hold oneself in. God wants you to have rule over your spirit, that’s why He put this beautiful quality in your spirit to make you fruitful always.
No Christian should say, “Well, I can’t control my desires” or “I can’t help myself sometimes.” Rather, he should exercise control over his spirit. To do this, all you say to yourself is: “I’ve got self-control, and it’s working in me. I’m in control of my being.” When you talk this way, your mind, will, emotions and physical senses are subjected to line up with your words. Through the agency of God’s Word and the influence of His Spirit, your spirit is regulated to gain the mastery over your mind, body and emotions.

Proverbs 16:32
[32]He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

2 Peter 1:5-9
[5]And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
[6]And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
[7]And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
[8]For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[9]But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.