“Temperance is love taking exercise, love enduring hardness, love seeking to become healthful and athletic, love striving for the mastery of all things, and bringing the body under. It is superior to sensual delights, and it is the power of applying resolutely to irksome duties for the Master’s sake. It is self-denial and self-control.”
James Hamilton (1814-1867) British author and Presbyterian minister in Day’s Collacon compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 932.
In recent days, we have found that wealth often comes to faithful stewards, though they must possess other traits as well lest their own intoxication with material blessings shift from enjoyment and sharing to self-indulgence and destruction (cf. Galatians 5:13-26). The opposite of self-indulgence is temperance. It’s synonymous with simplicity and self-control.
The person who exhibits temperance does what needs to be done, not just what he/she wants to do. They love, serve, toil, and persevere because they live and work for God, not for themselves. Such living is otherworldly, which is why temperance is among the traits known widely as the fruit of the Spirit (cf. Galatians 5:23).
Father in heaven, fill us with your Holy Spirit and through us produce beautiful fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance. Do this, so that our lives foster life and flourishing rather than death and destruction. Do this for your glory we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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