The Supplement of Self-Control

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, and steadfastness with godliness,

Do you take supplements? We are not a big "vitamin" family. I don't take any multi-vitamins. We have however started taking some sort of natural cod-liver oil pills within the last year. I am unsure of all the health benefits of this supplement, but my wife assures me that there are many, and I greatly trust my wife.

Remembering to take a supplement was a challenge. How do I train myself to remember? Well all I did was create a repeating alarm on my phone to remind me to take it everyday. In the beginning this was helpful to remember, but now the alarm functions more like a backup reminder if I happen to forget. It has become rare that would need the alarm to remind me to take my supplement.

This illustration is helpful in the realm of self-control. God tells me that I am to "make every effort to supplement my faith with...self-control." How shall I remember to take this supplement? Presumably the same way. Seems simple enough right? I'll just set a reminder to go off 5 minutes before every meal to remind me to take my supplement of self-control. What could be more simple? The problem is that in adding this particular supplement is to not add something but subtract something; namely excessive consumption of food and drink. Why is this harder? Because it takes "effort" to restrain the flesh. How much effort? We are reminded that we are to "make EVERY effort." Am I left to myself with a beeper and an alarm function on my cell phone to accomplish this supplement of self-control?

1 Peter 1:3 tells me that God's "divine power HAS granted to us ALL things that pertain to life and godliness." How exactly then? "Through the KNOWLEDGE OF HIM who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great PROMISES."

The supplement of self-control takes great effort to swallow this extremely large pill. But this is possible through getting to know the God of self-control. As we get to know him better, we find that this God of self-control has given us precious and very great promises. And through these promises, we have become "partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires."

Jesus bore the sin of sinful desires!