“I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Romans 7:18-19

How do we take hold of this formidable force of self-control to not live a life dominated by failure? Titus 2 explains a list of temptations to flee that result in gaining self-control. If we gain self-control, we can conquer life’s formidable choices that we believe takes away everything we enjoy in life. If we exercise self-control we begin to believe the essence of life has slipped through our fingers. We no longer have ‘control’ over our life.

This is actually the exact opposite, self-control is the beginning of life. If we can walk in a blameless dignity, we are enabling ourselves to meet our goals, declining the sinful temptations to unfold the depths of our soul to bring pure happiness. Without self-control we will all succumb to life’s evil rulings; sex, drugs, alcohol, greed and much more. We are built to feel wanted, accepted and good enough. We all are on a search to find the answers, whether that is faith, money, sex, drugs, food or gambling we are hunting and will devour our prey as soon as we can wrap our hands around it. We will seek and find but it’s what we find that will determine our destiny to be glorious or painful.

We are to flee temptations, not simply turn away or walk away but RUN away and flee from temptation. We are weak, feeble beings that end up conquered by our greatest fears if we are not continually, daily, moment by moment seeking the face of Christ to not succumb to our selfishness.

All of our choices drastically affect our family, friends, and people we encounter on a daily basis. What seems to be small sins for us end up ruining our life and have much larger consequences than what we had thought to be. We believe our selfishness is solely selfish, when reality is, it changes the lives of those we love and walk with. Did you hear that? Our selfishness dramatically effects the lives of those we love and walk with. That’s a powerful statement. Our selfishness is our own desires that will spread throughout the lives of our children, spouse, family, friends, co-workers, and even acquaintances. We impact history on some level or another.

For example remember a year and a half ago when the shooting took place in Aurora, Colorado and 12 people were shot at the Movie Theatre while watching “The Dark Night Rises?” 70 people were seriously injured, within those 82 people (which is a lot) all of them had families, friends and co-workers that were highly influenced on some level or another. History changed that night while that man decided to act on temptation; misery overtook him. History was forever changed in hundreds of lives.

Flee temptation and run rapidly to Christ! Ask and plead with the Lord to not succumb to the misery we create on ourselves and those we love.