Jesus' Discourse on Self-Mastery 

An amazing lesson from Jesus on self-mastery. When we forget ourselves, becoming selfless, it enables us to sincerely help others, thereby yielding our greatest peace and happiness.

Jesus and his twelve apostles had begun his public ministry on January 12, 27 CE. By June, Jesus and the apostles were quietly working in the area of Jerusalem, keeping out of the public eye, so they would not provoke the Jewish leaders. When one of the members of the Sanhedrin publicly embraced the teachings of Jesus at the end of June, the rest of the Jewish religious ruling class were ready to arrest him. Because of the increasing threat, Jesus and the apostles traveled north, to southern Samaria. After several weeks of teaching and ministering, they moved to the Greek cities of Archelais and Phasaelis. In August, 27 CE, the month of Jesus’ 33rd birthday, he taught the apostles this lesson on self-mastery.

During one evening’s teaching, the apostle Andrew asked Jesus, “Master, are we to practice self-denial as John taught, or are we to strive for the self-control of your teaching?”

Jesus answered, explaining that self-denial was the old way of religious living. He said, “I come with a new message of self-forgetfulness and self-control…the way of life as revealed to me by my Father in heaven.” Jesus then explained that anyone who conquers their own self is greater than someone who conquers a city.

The more a person masters their own ego, or selfishness, the greater their spiritual growth. Living the old way of self-denial, people would “suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living.” The new way of self-mastery means that a person is “transformed by the Spirit of Truth, which strengthens the soul “by the constant spiritual renewing of your mind.” The Spirit of God dwells within anyone who embraces the faith that God is our Father.

Because of that free will choice to have faith in God, “you are no longer bondslaves of the flesh (focused on physical and material desires) but free and liberated sons of the spirit. The new law of the spirit endows you with the liberty of self-mastery in place of the old law of self-bondage and the slavery of self-denial.”

Jesus then taught that many times people blame their bad choices on “the evil one”, instead of the real cause which is their own “foolish fears, divers lusts, enslaving pleasures, malice, envy, and even vengeful hatred!”

Anyone that knows they are God’s children are “born of the spirit” and are “always masters of the self and all that pertains to the desires of the flesh.” You become filled with God’s “heavenly peace” using the “exalted privilege to cleanse yourselves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for perfection in the love of God.”

Do not give way to fear. Do not doubt the love and mercy of the heavenly Father. “Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love.”

“If then, my children, you are born of the spirit, you are forever delivered from the self-conscious bondage of a life of self-denial and watchcare over the desires of the flesh, and you are translated into the joyous kingdom of the spirit, whence you spontaneously show forth the fruits of the spirit in your daily lives; and the fruits of the spirit are the essence of the highest type of enjoyable and ennobling self-control, even the heights of terrestrial mortal attainment–true self-mastery.”

Jesus is the shining inspiration for living. Even though a person cannot attain his “perfection of character,” one sees his amazing balance. The Apostle Thomas revered Jesus for his “superbly balanced character”. He was “so lovingly merciful yet so inflexibly just and fair; so firm but never obstinate; so calm but never indifferent; so helpful and so sympathetic but never meddlesome or dictatorial; so strong but at the same time so gentle; so positive but never rough or rude; so tender but never vacillating; so pure and innocent but at the same time so virile, aggressive, and forceful; so truly courageous but never rash or foolhardy; such a lover of nature but so free from all tendency to revere nature; so humorous and so playful, but so free from levity and frivolity.” Jesus exhibited a “matchless symmetry of personality.”