32 Bible Verses about Self Control

But the harvest-fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control; against such there is no law.

"For God's grace has shined forth bringing salvation to all men And schooling us to renounce impiety and evil passions, And to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age;

The minister should be a man of blameless character; he should be husband of but one wife; he should live a sober, self-restrained, orderly life; he should be hospitable, skilled in teaching;

but he must be hospitable, a lover of the good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled.

that the older men be self-controlled, serious and sober-minded, sound in faith, in love, in patience;

For this very reason do your best to add to your faith manliness, and to manliness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control stedfastness, and to stedfastness piety, and to piety brotherly love, and to brotherly love, love itself.read more.
For if these virtues are yours in abounding measure, they render you not idle nor unfruitful, until you come into the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the man who lacks these virtues is blind, short-sighted, forgetful of his cleansing from his old sins.

For my part, then, I run with no wavering to the goal. I box not as one beating the air, but I bruise my body and keep it in subjection, lest having called others to the contest, I should myself be disqualified.

If, however, a father feels that he is not treating his virgin daughter in a seemly manner, in leaving her unmarried beyond the flower of her age, and so the matter is urgent, let him do what she desires; he commits no sin. Let the marriage take place. On the other hand, he who is firm in his purpose and is under no compulsion, but is free to carry out his own wishes, and who has determined to keep his daughter unmarried, does well. So he that gives his daughter in marriage is doing right, and he who keeps her unmarried will be doing right, and he who keeps her unmarried will be doing better.

For this is God's will, even your sanctification; that you should abstain from sexual vice. That each one should learn how to take a wife in purity and honor. Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who know not God.read more.
That no man overreach or take advantage of his brother in such matters, because "the Lord takes vengeance" in all these things, as also I repeatedly forewarned you and testified to you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.

So then brace up your minds, be steady in spirit, and fix your hope firmly in the grace that is coming to you, at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So then let us not be sleeping as do the rest, but let us be watchful and self-controlled. For those who are sleeping, sleep in the night, and those who are drunken, are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be self-controlled, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

But the end of all things is close at hand; so be sober, watch and pray.

Be temperate, be vigilant; because your enemy, the devil, is prowling about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Mark this well, my dear brothers. Let every man be swift in hearing, slow in speaking, slow in growing angry;

Do not become many teachers, my brothers, because you know well that we teachers shall be judged by a severer standard than others. For in many respects we often stumble. If any man never stumbles in speech, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. When we put bits in the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we control their whole body also.read more.
Look at the ships too, though they are so large, even when driven by fierce winds they are turned by a very small rudder, wherever the impulse of the helmsman wills. So also the tongue is a small member and makes great boasts. Behold, how great a forest is set on fire by a little spark! And the tongue is a fire; it is a very world of iniquity among our members, defiling the whole body, and setting on fire the wheel of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For while every kind of beast and bird, and of reptiles and sea-creatures are tamable, and actually have been tamed by mankind, no man can tame the tongue, restless evil that it is, full of deadly poison. With it we continually bless our Lord and Father, and with it we are accustomed to curse men made in the image of God. From out of the same mouth pour forth blessings and cursings! My brothers, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives; or a grape-vine, figs? No more can salt water yield fresh water.

"But I tell you not to retaliate the injury; but whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also; "and if any one wants to go to law with you and takes away your coat, let him take your cloak also.

"But to you who are listening to me I say, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, Bless those who curse you, pray for those who calumniate you. To him who gives you a blow on the jaw Turn the other jaw also; And from him who is robbing you of your cloak Withhold not your coat also.

Household slaves, submit yourselves to your masters in all reverence; not only to the kind and gentle, but also to the unreasonable. For it is an acceptable thing to God, if from a sense of duty to him, a man endures a wrong, even suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you are struck for a fault, you take it patiently? But if when you are doing well and suffer for it, you always take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.read more.
For this is your calling; because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his footsteps; He committed no sin, Neither was guile found in his mouth. He was reviled, and reviled not back. When he suffered he never threatened but always committed his cause to the One who judges rightly.

But he remained silent, and answered nothing. Again the high priest questioned him. "Are you the Christ," he said, "the Son of the Blessed?"

Then the soldiers of the Governor took Jesus into the Praetorium, and gathered all the battalion together. They stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe. And they twisted a thorny crown for him, and put it on his head, and placed a reed in his right hand. Then they knelt before him, in mockery, crying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"read more.
And they spit upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head, again and again.

Homeless men, we toil, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when defamed, we conciliate. We have been made, as it were, scum-o'-the-earth, the very refuse of the world, to this very hour!

Do you not know that in a foot-race, though all run, only one receives the prize? So run that you may win. Every man who contends in the games continually trains himself by all manner of self-restraint. Now they do it to get a fading garland, but we, one that is unfading. For my part, then, I run with no wavering to the goal. I box not as one beating the air,read more.
but I bruise my body and keep it in subjection, lest having called others to the contest, I should myself be disqualified.

And as he reasoned about morality, self-control, and the future judgment, Felix was terrified, and said, "For the present go on your way, and when I find a convenient season, I will send for you."

So God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their own bodies; because they exchanged the truth of God for an untruth, and worshiped and served the creature, rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. That is why God has given them up to passions of dishonor; for on the one hand their women actually changed the natural function of sex into that which is against nature;read more.
and on the other hand their men likewise abandoned the natural use of women, and were ablaze with passion for one another; men with men practising shameless acts and receiving in their own person that recompense of their wrong-doing which necessarily followed. And just as they refused to continue to retain God in their knowledge, so did God cast them out to an outcast mind, to do those things which were indecent. They were overflowing with every kind of iniquity, depravity, greed, and malice. They were full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and malignity. They became whisperers, back-biters, hated of God, insolent, haughty, boastful. They invented sins. They were disobedient to parents. They were without sense, without faith, without natural affection, without mercy.

Do not refuse one another, unless it is only temporary and by mutual consent, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, lest through your lack of self-control Satan begin to tempt you to sin.

If, however, they are not exercising self-control, by all means let them marry; for marriage is better than the fever of passion.

For these precepts, although they have a show of wisdom with their self-imposed devotions and fastings and bodily austerities, are of no real value against the indulgence of the carnal appetites.

But these men, like irrational creatures, mere animals, born to be taken and destroyed, continually rail about matters of which they know nothing. In their corruption they will surely be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wage of wrong which they have done. These are men who count it pleasure to carouse in open daylight; they are spots and blemishes reveling in their deceit, even while they are feasting with you. They have eyes full of harlots, eyes that cannot stop sinning. They entice unsteady souls. Their heart is trained in greed. They are an accursed generation.

Therefore let not sin rule as king in your mortal body, compelling you to obey its lusts.

But the harvest-fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control;

He who overcomes will inherit these, And I will be his God, And he shall be my son.

The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets,