47 Bible Verses about Self Indulgence

Among them all of us also formerly passed our lives, governed by the inclinations of our lower natures, indulging the cravings of those natures and of our own thoughts, and were in our original state deserving of anger like all others.

Sin took advantage of this, and by means of the Commandment stirred up within me every kind of coveting; for apart from Law sin would be dead.

For men of that stamp are not bondservants of Christ our Lord, but are slaves to their own appetites; and by their plausible words and their flattery they utterly deceive the minds of the simple.

For there was a time when we also were deficient in understanding, obstinate, deluded, the slaves of various cravings and pleasures, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another.

But when a man is tempted, it is his own passions that carry him away and serve as a bait.

For, while they pour out their frivolous and arrogant talk, they use earthly cravings--every kind of immorality--as a bait to entrap men who are just escaping from the influence of those who live in error. And they promise them freedom, although they are themselves the slaves of what is corrupt. For a man is the slave of any one by whom he has been worsted in fight.

For the things in the world--the cravings of the earthly nature, the cravings of the eyes, the show and pride of life--they all come, not from the Father, but from the world.

But if in your hearts you have bitter feelings of envy and rivalry, do not speak boastfully and falsely, in defiance of the truth. That is not the wisdom which comes down from above: it belongs to earth, to the unspiritual nature, and to evil spirits. For where envy and rivalry are, there also are unrest and every vile deed.

enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of passion, intrigues, dissensions, factions, envyings;

while the others proclaim Him from motives of rivalry, and insincerely, supposing that by this they are embittering my imprisonment.

What causes wars and contentions among you? Is it not the cravings which are ever at war within you for various pleasures? You covet things and yet cannot get them; you commit murder; you have passionate desires and yet cannot gain your end; you begin to fight and make war. You have not, because you do not pray; or you pray and yet do not receive, because you pray wrongly, your object being to waste what you get on some pleasure or another.

Now you know full well the doings of our lower natures. Fornication, impurity, indecency, idol-worship, sorcery;

Nor may we be fornicators, like some of them who committed fornication and on a single day 23,000 of them fell dead.

and that upon re-visiting you I may be humbled by my God in your presence, and may have to mourn over many whose hearts still cling to their old sins, and who have not repented of the impurity, fornication, and gross sensuality, of which they have been guilty.

Their very eyes are full of adultery--being eyes which never cease from sin. These men set traps to catch unstedfast souls, their own hearts being well trained in greed. They are fore-doomed to God's curse!

your gold and your silver have become covered with rust, and the rust on them will give evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded up wealth in these last days. I tell you that the pay of the labourers who have gathered in your crops--pay which you are keeping back--is calling out against you; and the outcries of those who have been your reapers have entered into the ears of the Lord of the armies of Heaven. Here on earth you have lived self-indulgent and profligate lives. You have stupefied yourselves with gross feeding; but a day of slaughter has come.

You must stop the mouths of such men, for they overthrow the faith of whole families, teaching what they ought not, just for the sake of making money.

Such men being past feeling have abandoned themselves to impurity, greedily indulging in every kind of profligacy.

This then is the reason why God gave them up to vile passions. For not only did the women among them exchange the natural use of their bodies for one which is contrary to nature, but the men also, in just the same way--neglecting that for which nature intends women--burned with passion towards one another, men practising shameful vice with men, and receiving in their own selves the reward which necessarily followed their misconduct. And just as they had refused to continue to have a full knowledge of God, so it was to utterly worthless minds that God gave them up, for them to do things which should not be done.read more.
Their hearts overflowed with all sorts of dishonesty, mischief, greed, malice. They were full of envy and murder, and were quarrelsome, crafty, and spiteful. They were secret backbiters, open slanderers; hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful; inventors of new forms of sin, disobedient to parents, destitute of common sense, faithless to their promises, without natural affection, without human pity.

But of this be assured: in the last days grievous times will set in. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, profane. They will be disobedient to parents, thankless, irreligious, destitute of natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers. They will have no self-control, but will be brutal, opposed to goodness,read more.
treacherous, headstrong, self-important. They will love pleasure instead of loving God,

"And he said to himself, "'This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and in them I will store up all my harvest and my wealth; and I will say to my life, "'Life, you have ample possessions laid up for many years to come: take your ease, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.' "But God said to him, "'Foolish man, this night your life is demanded from you; and these preparations--for whom shall they be?'read more.
"So is it with him who amasses treasure for himself, but has no riches in God."

No long time afterwards the younger son got all together and travelled to a distant country, where he wasted his money in debauchery and excess. At last, when he had spent everything, there came a terrible famine throughout that country, and he began to feel the pinch of want. So he went and hired himself to one of the inhabitants of that country, who sent him on to his farm to tend swine;read more.
and he longed to make a hearty meal of the pods the swine were eating, but no one gave him any.

but a pleasure-loving widow is dead even while still alive.

while on the other hand upon the self-willed who disobey the truth and obey unrighteousness will fall anger and fury, affliction and awful distress,

Their end is destruction, their bellies are their God, their glory is in their shame, and their minds are devoted to earthly things.

and I will say to my life, "'Life, you have ample possessions laid up for many years to come: take your ease, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.' "But God said to him, "'Foolish man, this night your life is demanded from you; and these preparations--for whom shall they be?'

"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you wash clean the outside of the cup or dish, while within they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

And do not follow the customs of the present age, but be transformed by the entire renewal of your minds, so that you may learn by experience what God's will is--that will which is good and beautiful and perfect.

"Do not handle this;" "Do not taste that;" "Do not touch that other thing" -- referring to things which are all intended to be used up and perish--in obedience to mere human injunctions and teachings? These rules have indeed an appearance of wisdom where self-imposed worship exists, and an affectation of humility and an ascetic severity. But not one of them is of any value in combating the indulgence of our lower natures.

On the contrary, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for gratifying your earthly cravings.

Against such things as these there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their lower nature with its passions and appetites.

For the grace of God has displayed itself with healing power to all mankind, training us to renounce ungodliness and all the pleasures of this world, and to live sober, upright, and pious lives at the present time,

For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.

This then is what I mean. Let your lives be guided by the Spirit, and then you will certainly not indulge the cravings of your lower natures.

And, since you delight in obedience, do not shape your lives by the cravings which used to dominate you in the time of your ignorance,

that in future you may spend the rest of your earthly lives, governed not by human passions, but by the will of God.

For this is God's will--your purity of life, that you abstain from fornication; that each man among you shall know how to procure a wife who shall be his own in purity and honour; that you be not overmastered by lustful cravings, like the Gentiles who have no knowledge of God;

But every competitor in an athletic contest practices abstemiousness in all directions. They indeed do this for the sake of securing a perishable wreath, but we for the sake of securing one that will not perish. That is how I run, not being in any doubt as to my goal. I am a boxer who does not inflict blows on the air, but I hit hard and straight at my own body and lead it off into slavery, lest possibly, after I have been a herald to others, I should myself be rejected.

But the end of all things is now close at hand: therefore be sober-minded and temperate, so that you may give yourselves to prayer.

along with knowledge, self-control; along with self-control, power of endurance;

Therefore put to death your earthward inclinations--fornication, impurity, sensual passion, unholy desire, and all greed, for that is a form of idolatry.

But I tell you that whoever looks at a woman and cherishes lustful thoughts has already in his heart become guilty with regard to her. If therefore your eye, even the right eye, is a snare to you, tear it out and away with it; it is better for you that one member should be destroyed rather than that your whole body should be thrown into Gehenna.

Dear friends, I entreat you as pilgrims and foreigners not to indulge the cravings of your lower natures: for all such cravings wage war upon the soul.

You however, brethren, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an excuse for giving way to your lower natures; but become bondservants to one another in a spirit of love.

Everything is allowable, but not everything is profitable. Everything is allowable, but everything does not build others up. Let no one be for ever seeking his own good, but let each seek that of his fellow man.

Do nothing in a spirit of factiousness or of vainglory, but, with true humility, let every one regard the rest as being of more account than himself; each fixing his attention, not simply on his own interests, but on those of others also.

Zacchaeus however stood up, and addressing the Lord said, "Here and now, Master, I give half my property to the poor, and if I have unjustly exacted money from any man, I pledge myself to repay to him four times the amount."