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2. Group Questions 1.What would you say are the three biggest areas in which people fail to exercise self-control? How can we recognize these temptations more quickly? What are the consequences? 2.Practically speaking, what are some strategies we can build into our lives to increase self-control, when we are tempted to indulge our desires? 3.Because biblical self-control is not a product of our natural will-power, what trains us to live self-controlled lives? (See Titus 2:11-12) What does this insight mean to you personally?

3. Self-Control Drugs AlcoholShopping Laziness Sex Materialism Procrastination Food Pornography Verbal Outbursts

4. Proverbs 25:28 A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.

5. Ecclesiastes 2:10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure…

6. Proverbs 29:11 A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.

7. Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law

8. 1 Thess. 4:3-4 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor

9. 1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded (self-controlled), set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ

10. 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded (self-controlled); be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour

11. 2 Peter 1:5-6 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self- control, and self-control with steadfastness

12. 2 Tim. 3:2-3 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good

13. James 4:1-2 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask

14. 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul

15. Jerry Bridges – it is the governance of one’s desires, cravings, impulses, emotions, and passions. It is saying no when we should say no. It is moderation in legitimate desires and activities, and absolute restraint in areas that are clearly sinful

16. 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified