WE HAVE BEEN insisting that this Jesus-centered firsthandedness is the sounded approach to God and reality. It is under the constant redemptive correction and conversion of the person of Jesus. It has a Savior at its heart, saving not only from sin and guilt, but also from marginal values which creep into the center and become dominant. He saves from trespasses and from the trivial. By His amazing sanity He keeps His movement and His men from going off into the queer. It is healthy-minded goodness. Sanity and sanctity go hand in hand. In Him they are wedded forevermore. The fruit of that union is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The firstborn is love, and the last-born is self-control.
The Christian way doesn’t begin with self-control through the usual way of “know thyself.” It begins with: “This is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). It begins by knowing God through and in Jesus Christ. Knowing the Redeemer, you know yourself as a redeemed child of God. Knowing yourself as under redemption, you can accept yourself in Him, for it is an acceptable self. You can love yourself since He loves you. So all self-hate, self-loathing, and self-rejection drop away—drop away through the expulsive power of a new affection—love for Jesus Christ.
Then there is self-control as a result of Christ-control. Self-control is last of the fruits, not first as in out-of-Christ procedures. If self-control is first, it results in tension and strain—a strained goodness. This way of Christ-control is effortless striving, hence unstrained.
O Jesus, my Lord, when I cease striving and surrender to Thee and let Thy power work in and through me, I’m not sitting on a lid. I let nature caper, for that nature is controlled by Thy easy yoke and Thy light burden. I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My self-control is rooted in Christ-control, therefore relaxed and receptive—and effective.
