Good Evening my brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray that you’ve spent the week living intentionally, and with purpose. I’m a couple of days past Sunday but needed the time to really hear from the Lord regarding this post. For the last several months I’ve been drawn to working on my self-control. Self-control to me is parallel to obedience, discipline, and the ability to be intentional in all areas of my life. I believe that often people associate these abilities with being deprived of something or someone. The bible is full of passages that speak about being obedient to the Word of God. The more I grow in my relationship with Yeshua the more He provides me with wisdom pertaining to self-control. I felt it necessary to share how impactful it is to live a life of self-control, obedience, discipline, and intent.
I spent the majority of my life practicing poor self-control. There were many nights that I found myself begging the Lord to take me back because I strayed too far. I could go on and on about the many instances where I failed people, myself, and the Lord. For the sake of this being Self-Care Sunday, I want to strictly focus on myself, and Yeshua of course. The root issue to my demise throughout the years was tangled in generational curses, spirits of perversion, Jezebel, selfishness, doubt, worry, fear, suicide, soul-ties, and strongmen. The mix of those things did a number on my ability to love me and practice self-control. I would venture to say that a lack of self-love will always produce a lack of self-control.
To love myself I had to first believe what Yeshua said about me instead of what I said about me. I always knew that God loved me, and I needed to learn how to love me how He loved me. When you love yourself, you begin to set a standard. Your worth increases. You start to thrive as God separates you from things that you were once attracted to. See, the enemy loves for you to be disobedient. When you lack self-control, you deliberately forfeit your inheritance from the Lord. This includes forfeiting your covering from the Lord. That is ultimately what the enemy wants you to do. Remember, he is here to steal, kill, and destroy. So when you choose to be disobedient to God by sinning deliberately; you open the door to spirits that are not of God. Inconsistency, double-mindedness, anxiety, depression, self-sabotage, inability to set and accomplish goals, hatred, jealousy, greed, addiction, worthlessness, perversion, adultery, as well as a lack of self-love to name a few. All of which you expose yourself to through your disobedience. Food for Thought: How can you ask God to deliver and protect you from what you so willingly participate in?
The bible says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21)
When we live with intent serving the Lord we inherit his Holy Spirit. The bible talks about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
I had to get to a place in my life that I CHOSE to start living with intent. I no longer saw obedience as a restriction. I saw obedience as favor, wisdom, peace, guidance, and relationship with the Father. Self-Control allowed me to reach a level of intimacy in Christ that I was always longing for. It was the very thing that I aimlessly was searching for all these years. He was the void that I needed in a world that taught me to hate myself as a young girl. He showed me how to forgive myself, how to love myself, how to be vulnerable in my marriage, how to be strong as a woman of God, and how to speak life into myself. He’s shown me that I have dominion over the enemy and his attacks. Most importantly, He has shown me that my WILLINGNESS to choose Him over myself is pleasing to Him.
God’s Holy Spirit living in me has placed me in position through my obedience. Now I can love me and see the beauty in God’s creation. I live my life with intent as I pursue the path of righteousness. And I finally know my purpose. Everything that I lacked I have found in Christ Jesus.
Self-Care Sunday isn’t strictly for Sundays. It’s a practice that you should be doing every day; naturally and spiritually. This world is full of people who operate in their flesh. The same people who will speak death into you. Perhaps you’re the person speaking death into yourself. If you don’t know who you are or who God says you are I challenge to you seek Him to find out. I challenge you to live an of life of self-control, and obedience to God. I know with certainty that you will never see yourself in the same light after seeing yourself how God sees you.
Remember, Yeshua is the one who knows EVERYTHING about you and is also the one who loves you unconditionally through it all. Blessings.
Mindful of Me 