A question that’s been bugging me lately is, “What precedes temperance?”
Our church just finished the second week of a series called, “Do This, Not That.” It’s a series on the seven deadly sins – a collection of sins that have proved to be the most troublesome for Christians to eradicate from their lives.
The solution, Galatians 5 and other scriptures exhort us, is to focus on cultivating a corresponding virtue that ultimately supplants the vice we struggle with.
This past Sunday we discussed the deadly sin of gluttony, and how focusing on temperance (i.e. “tempering our impulses to spend, eat, speak rashly, whatever) cultivates the spiritual strength to withstand all forms of gluttony.
But what precedes temperance? When you see someone who oozes self-control, what causes them to be so? What gives them the inner drive to control themselves?
