1 Corinthians 9:25, Temperate in All Things

1 Corinthians 9:25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

Athletes go through much self-discipline to condition themselves in the best physical condition for the competition. So does the spiritual athlete. To be temperate is to exercise self-control. “He who has no self-control is like a dilapidated city” is a good paraphrase of this proverb (Timothy Tow, Pearls of Great Wisdom – A Study of the Book of Proverbs). Self-control is the spiritual quality or virtue that enables a Christian to have the power to keep himself/herself in check against the sin of the flesh and the spirit.

A Christian writer apt says, “In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man. Not to be impulsive – not to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes uppermost – but to be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by the joint decision of the feelings in the council assembled, before whom every action shall have been debated and calmly determined – that it is which education, moral education at least, strive to produce.”

Self-control is only courage under another form. It may be almost regarded as the primary essence of the character. Self-control is the root of all virtues. The man who gives up to his impulses and passions yields his moral freedom. In another text in Romans 6:1-2, 6-18, the Apostle Paul describes the battle of the human heart between the law of the flesh and the law of the Spirit. The Christian by self-control distinguished himself/herself from being a servant to righteousness than a servant to sin.

The Christian who seeks the Lord’s commendation at the end of life’s journey seeks to put in subjection sin, the works of the flesh in his life to obtain an incorruptible crown.