Self control is a concept I feel is waning in the American culture.
"He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his own spirit than he who takes a city." Proverbs 16:32, Amplified
Being slow to anger has to do with controlling emotion. Solomon compares the controller of anger to a mighty man and calls the former the better. It is so easy to allow our emotions to get the better of us. The apostle Paul understood this and he wrote to the one of the churches, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice." (Ephesians 4:31, NKJV) Being put away with all malice means to violently expel them from your person; it is actually kind of oxymoronic. But this is how it has to be, we need to get violent with violent emotion so that we do not get violent with our fellow man. There is a time and a place for anger, but we need to be men and women who are not consumed by it. When anger rules a life, Jesus has no place in the heart.
As we become slow to anger, we become more savvy in the ruling of our own spirits. Solomon likens the controller of his own spirit to one who takes a city and calls the former the better. Now controlling the spirit entails more than just curbing anger. Controlling the spirit has a reign on all emotion such as greed, gluttony, lust and anger. There are more emotions than I have time to list, but you get the idea that we must become the masters of our emotions or our emotions will indeed become the masters of us. Paul wrote, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23, NKJV) Having no law against these things means that there is nothing evil anyone can say regarding a persons actions when operating in the fruit of the Spirit.
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