Maintaining our Spiritual Defenses

It is a technique of some professional fighters to try to taunt their opponent with insults so that they react with emotion and lose their self-control. An uncontrolled attack may well leave gaps in their defense which can be exploited. The boxer Muhammad Ali was famous for this.   

A city with broken walls has gaps in its defenses and when we lose self-control we open up gaps in our defenses in the spiritual war in which we are all engaged. Our enemy, the devil, will use those opportunities to press home his attack like Ali going for a knock-out punch. If we lose our temper, we are tempted to say or do things that may escalate the situation and make it worse. Proverbs says that a wise person has control of their tongue and will overlook an insult. We can probably all think of times when we lost control in a dispute and said something which we wouldn't normally have said and then regretted it later.   

If we lose control by falling to temptation, the enemy can use that to distance us from our fellowship with God and our fellow believers. It also lowers our defenses making it easier for the same thing to happen again. Repeated loss of self-control opens us up to forming a bad habit that can cripple our Christian walk and witness.   

How can we maintain our spiritual defenses by keeping our self-control? Like the boxer, we can ignore insults, frustrations, and other temptations by seeing them for what they are and keeping our eyes on the goa,  which in our case is serving God. 

If we fix the eyes of our heart on Jesus and trust in His strength as we walk with Him, He will keep our heart and mind in His transcendent peace.