Self Control – “to exercise control over all the passions, desires, cravings, and emotions of our sin nature, rather than letting them control us.” Self-control is a key link in the chain of growing into spiritual maturity because when we learn self-control, it produces a lifetime habit of self-discipline for the purpose of godliness. Self-control provides us with the ability to say “no” to our evil passions, desires, and choices that conflict with what God wants. It also provides us with the ability to say “yes” to and discipline ourselves to do the things we need to do in order to maintain our walk with God and grow into spiritual maturity. We need to learn self-control because there cannot be any spiritual growth or maturity without it. As someone has well said, “without self-control we are just spinning our spiritual wheels and going nowhere in our Christian life.” (Proverbs 16:32), “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”