32 Bible Verses about Self Control

But the product of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law against such things.

For God's favor has appeared with its offer of salvation to all mankind, training us to give up godless ways and worldly cravings and live serious, upright, and godly lives in this world,

So the pastor must be a man above reproach, must have only one wife, must be temperate, sensible, well-behaved, hospitable, skillful in teaching;

but hospitable, a lover of goodness, sensible, upright, of pure life, self-controlled,

the older men to be temperate, serious, and sensible, healthy in faith, in love, and in steadfastness;

Now for this very reason you must do your level best to supplement your faith with moral character, moral character with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with patient endurance, patient endurance with piety, piety with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with universal love.read more.
For if you have these qualities and they continue to increase in you, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive in attaining a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is blind -- or short-sighted-- and forgetful of the cleansing that he has received from his former sins.

So that is the way I run, with no uncertainty as to winning. That is the way I box, not like one that punches the air. But I keep on beating and bruising my body and making it my slave, so that I, after I have summoned others to the race, may not myself become unfit to run.

Now if a father thinks that he is not doing the proper thing regarding his single daughter, if she is past the bloom of her youth, and she ought to do so, let him do what she desires; he commits no sin. Let the daughter and her suitor marry. But the father who stands firm in his purpose, without having any necessity for doing so, and he has made the decision in his own heart to keep her single, will do what is right. And so the man who gives his daughter in marriage does what is right, and yet the man who does not do so does even better.

For it is God's will that you should keep pure in person, that you should practice abstinence from sexual immorality, that each man among you should learn to take his own wife out of pure and honorable motives, not out of evil passions as the heathen do who do not know God;read more.
that no one should do wrong and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord takes vengeance for all such things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to a life of immorality, but to one of personal purity.

Therefore, as a means of spiritual preparation, tighten up the belt about your minds, keep perfectly calm, keep your hope on the spiritual blessing to be conferred upon you at the unveiling of Jesus Christ.

So let us stop sleeping as others do, but let us stay awake and keep sober. For those who sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunken at night, but let us who belong to the day keep sober, clothed with faith and love for a coat of mail and with the hope of salvation for a helmet.

But the end of everything on earth is near. So be serious and sober minded, that you may give yourselves to prayer.

Be calm and alert. Your opponent the devil is always prowling about like a roaring lion, trying to devour you.

You must understand this, my dearly loved brothers. Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to get angry;

Many of you, my brothers, should avoid becoming teachers, because you know that we teachers are going to be judged with stricter judgment than other people. For we all make many a slip. If anyone never slips in speech, he is a man of maturity; he can control his whole body too. If we put bridles into horses' mouths to make them obey us, we can guide their whole bodies, too.read more.
Look at ships, too; though great and driven by violent winds, they are steered with a tiny rudder wherever the pilot pleases. So the tongue, too, is a little organ but can boast of great achievements. See how a spark, ever so tiny, can set a vast forest on fire! And the tongue is a fire, and takes its place among the parts of our bodies as a world of evil; it soils the whole body and sets on fire the circle of man's nature, and itself is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beasts and birds, of reptiles and sea animals, can be, or have been, tamed by man; but the tongue no human being can tame. It is an evil incapable of being quieted, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth flow blessing and cursing! It ought not to be like this, my brothers. A fountain cannot pour from the same opening fresh and brackish water, can it? A fig tree, my brothers, cannot bear olives, or a grape-vine figs, can it? And a salt spring cannot furnish fresh water.

But I tell you not to resist the one who injures you, but if anyone slaps you on one cheek, turn him the other, too; and if anyone wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat, too.

But I say to you who listen now to me, practice loving your enemies, practice doing good to those who hate you, continue to bless those who curse you, and continue to pray for those who abuse you. To the man who strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other too; and from the man who takes away your coat, do not keep back your shirt either,

You house-servants must be submissive to your masters and show them perfect respect, not only to those who are kind and fair but also to those who are cruel. For it is pleasing in the sight of God for one to bear his sorrows though suffering innocently. For what credit is it to bear it patiently, if you do wrong and are beaten for it? But if you do right and patiently suffer for it, it is pleasing in the sight of God.read more.
Indeed, it was to this kind of living that you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow His footsteps. He never committed a sin, and deceit was never found on His lips. Although He was abused, He never retorted; although He continued to suffer, He never threatened, but committed His case to Him who judges justly.

But He kept silent and made no answer at all. So the high priest again questioned Him in these words, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"

Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the barracks, and gathered about Him the whole battalion. Then they stripped Him, and put a purple cloak on Him, and made a crown of thorns and set it on His head, and they put a stick in His hand, and kneeling before Him they made sport of Him, saying, "All hail, you king of the Jews!"read more.
And they spit on Him, and took the stick and kept hitting Him on the head.

We have worked hard with our own hands for a living. When abused by people, we bless them. When persecuted, we patiently bear it. When we are slandered by them, we try to conciliate them. To this very hour we have been made the filth of the world, the scum of the universe!

Do you not know that in a race the runners all run, but only one can get the prize? You must run in such a way that you can get the prize. Any man who enters an athletic contest practices rigid self-control in training, only to win a wreath that withers, but we are in to win a wreath that never withers. So that is the way I run, with no uncertainty as to winning. That is the way I box, not like one that punches the air.read more.
But I keep on beating and bruising my body and making it my slave, so that I, after I have summoned others to the race, may not myself become unfit to run.

But as he continued to talk about uprightness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became alarmed, and said, "For the present you may go, but when I find a good opportunity, I will send for you."

So God has given them up to sexual impurity, in the evil trend of their heart's desires, so that they degrade their own bodies with one another, for they had utterly transformed the reality of God into what was unreal, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. This is why God has given them up to degrading passions. For their females have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural,read more.
and males too have forsaken the natural function of females and been consumed by flaming passion for one another, males practicing shameful vice with other males, and continuing to suffer in their persons the inevitable penalty for doing what is improper. And so, as they did not approve of fully recognizing God any longer, God gave them up to minds that He did not approve, to practices that were improper; because they overflow with every sort of evil-doing, wickedness, greed, and malice; they are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, ill-will; they are secret backbiters, open slanderers, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful; inventors of new forms of evil, undutiful to parents, conscienceless, treacherous, with no human love or pity.

You husbands and wives must stop refusing each other what is due, unless you agree to do so just for awhile, so as to have plenty of time for prayer, and then to be together again, so as to keep Satan from tempting you because of your lack of self-control.

But if they do not practice self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burning in the fire of passion.

Such practices have the outward expression of wisdom, with their self-imposed devotions, their self-humiliation, their torturings of the body, but they are of no value; they really satisfy the lower nature.

These men, like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct created to be caught and killed, abuse the things that they do not understand, and so by their corruption they will be destroyed, suffering wrong as punishment for their wrongdoing. They think their daily luxurious living real pleasure; they are spots and blots, deceitfully living in luxurious pleasure while they continue their religious feasting with you. They have eyes full of adultery and insatiable by sin. They practice enticing unsteady souls. They have trained their hearts in greed. They are doomed to a curse!

Accordingly, sin must not continue to reign over your mortal bodies, so as to make you continue to obey their evil desires,

But the product of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Whoever conquers will come into possession of these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

for the spirits of prophets yield to prophets;