Just like in Nehemiah’s time, we are living within broken down walls.  Our lives are in ruin and we co-exist under the rubble each day.  Our protection is null and void, and we provide ourselves as sitting ducks for the enemy.  I truly believe that, if we could get this area under control in our Christian lives, we could be so effective for the cause of Christ.  We’d walk in victory each day, instead of defeat.

I’m convinced that you and I struggle with self-control because we are selfish, pleasure-seeking creatures.  We begin, from a very young age, to coddle our passions.  James says we are tempted when we are drawn away from our own lusts and enticed.  When we think we can’t have something, we naturally want it more.  Like a horse with a carrot in front of our nose, we follow blindly until we get the thing we are after.  A lack of self-control comes from a life of yielding to the wrong things.  We yield and yield to the things that do not benefit us, and wonder why we struggle with anger, pride, gluttony and drunkenness.  We feed the thing we should in fact, be starving to death.  

We will never overcome our selfishness when we continually provide ourselves with a codependent relationship.  Yes, we can actually be our own worst advocate; we set up a relationship of codependency with ourselves.  

Profound?  Yes.  It was for me too!     

Are you continually providing yourself with the very thing that isn’t good for you just to appease your emotional state?  Are you avoiding the change you know needs to happen because you are so quick to yield to your unhealthy ways?

So how do you break up with your codependent relationship with yourself?  Like a 700 pound, home-bound glutton, stop providing yourself the cake and chips and get up and move!

5 Ways To Gain Some Self-Control

1) Stop the codependent relationship with yourself!
You will never change until you stop the unhealthy relationship with yourself!  Think about it.  You continually provide yourself with the very things you are trying to avoid.  You feed your environment, your senses, and your mind and you wonder why you are still struggling.  Break up with your codependent relationship with YOU!
    
2) Do the opposite.
Start yielding to the right things!  The put off, put on principle (Ephesians 4:22-32).  If you struggle with stealing, give.  If you struggle with anger, practice gentleness.  If you have a problem with your tongue, speak kindness and love. 
   
3) Creating new habits takes time.
It will take time to change a habit you’ve worked so hard to create!  Keep doing what is right (go against the flow).  It will seem like you are going against the current, but eventually you will find that you will be going with the flow of a new current.  Before change can occur, there must be some healthy resistance!  

4) Change your mind.
2 Corinthians 10:5 says to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ!  Your mind needs to change.  Allow it to bow before the Father and ask the Holy Spirit to allow your will to become obedient!  The Bible says we must be renewed in our minds first.  So immerse yourself in the Word of God and let Him change your thinking.  The inward working will provide the outward change.

5) Be patient with the process.
Be patient.  Part of the problem with us as human beings is that we are selfish, impatient people!  We want what we want and we want it yesterday!  So learn to be patient.  Continue to make the changes.  Press on, you will get there!

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