Day 6.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people (emphasis added).
So much energy in advertising and business seems focus on the customer’s pleasure. Customers seeking pleasure is assumed. As a society, we seem to have little practice in self-control, and there are few voices advocating for it. The voices that do advocate self-control are often restricted to exercise or better eating (nothing inherently wrong with these), but with the focus on a more attractive body, even these can be a back door to increasing our focus on sensual things. It is no surprise, then, that the call to sexual chastity finds so few hearers, as chastity requires much self-control.
Our Father in heaven, we confess that all too often we resemble the sensualist people of the last days described in 2 Timothy. Help us to not be lovers of self and worshipers of self, money and pleasure, but to be self-controlled and submitted to you. Let the example of your church being joyfully submitted to you be a compelling example to the world. Pour out the fruit of the spirit of self-control on me, on my church, and on the global church. Give us wisdom, grace and strength to disciple those in our lives in the discipline of self-control.