HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 300
page A298
Self-Control continued
were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise
that could be heard far in the distance.
A single event can produce multiple emotions. While you celebrate a rainstorm for your
garden, others may mourn because it rained on their picnic. Try to understand that the
feelings of others may be quite different from yours, even over the same event. Don’t
try to force others to feel the way you do, but also don’t be influenced to always feel the
same way others do.
• E PH E S I A NS 4 :2 3 | Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.
• R O MA NS 1 3 :1 4 | Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.
When you let Christ control you, he will direct your emotions into healthy behavior.
• 2 P E T E R 1 :5 -6 | Supplement your faith . . . with self-control, and self-control with patient
endurance, and patient endurance with godliness.
S
We often think of emotions in a negative sense, like when they get out of control. But without emotions you cannot experience the power and deep satisfaction of a relationship with
God. It’s hard to prevent your emotions from controlling you (worrying too much, getting
caught up in doing the wrong thing, letting anger get out of control). Don’t deny your emotions, but don’t let them control you or cause you to sin. Use the emotions God has given
you to deepen your relationship with him (whether they involve sorrow or joy, anguish or
peace, anger or love, doubt or gratitude) and you will experience the drama and power of
true Christian living.
PROMISES FROM GOD
HelpFinder
• J A ME S 1 :1 2 | God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward
they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
• 2 P E T E R 1 :5 -8 | In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises.
Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence
with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance,
and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly
affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful
you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Self-Esteem See also Character; Dignity; Purpose; Strengths & Weaknesses
Deep within every human heart lies a desire for significance. We want our lives to count,
to make a difference, to be worth something. Yet many of us carry even deeper feelings
of insignificance. Our lives and aspirations are dominated not by our abilities but by our
inabilities, not by our successes but by our failures. Everywhere we look we see others
who are more successful, more gifted, more this, more that. But through people like
Moses, Gideon, David, Esther, Paul, and many others, the Bible reveals lives that were
at times crippled with insignificance yet, with God’s help, profoundly significant. God is
encouraging us daily, letting us know that we are significant not for what we can accomplish in this life but for what he can accomplish through us for eternity.
Sometimes I look at the world and feel like my life is completely insignificant.
Does my life really matter to God?
• PSA L M 8 :4 -5 | What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings
that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and
crowned them with glory and honor. (See note on page 484.)
• G E NE S I S 1 :2 6 -2 7 | Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like
us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild
animals on the earth, and the small animals. . . .” So God created human beings in his
own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.