The Key to the Christian Life: Mastery of the Self

We stand today at the threshold of Passiontide, gazing not merely at a season, but at a mystery—the mystery of God’s love, clothed in weakness, crowned in thorns, nailed in silence.

The Church, in her wisdom, veils the crucifix today. And perhaps that troubles us. We ask: why hide the very image that saves? But let me suggest that the veil is not hiding the Cross from us—it is hiding us from the truth of it.

You see, we do not understand the Cross—not really. We sentimentalize it. We wear it around our necks like jewelry, while refusing to carry it in our hearts. The veil reminds us: the Cross is not yet fully known to us. And so, we are asked to behold it—not with our eyes, but with our faith.

The Key to the Christian Life: Mastery of the Self

At its heart, the Christian life is not a mysterious code or an unattainable spiritual acrobatics. It is, quite simply, self-control. That is the whole trick. Holiness is not a magic gift doled out to a few lucky souls—it is the fruit of learning to govern oneself.

To be a Christian is to take control of one’s emotions, one’s instincts, one’s gifts and limitations—what the ancients called the passions. It is to become master of your predilections, your inclinations, your talents, your appetites, and even your sensitivities. All of these are the raw material of potential… of who we might become.

What distinguishes us from the animals is not strength or instinct, but reason: the ability to reflect, to deliberate, to act not only within but beyond the constraints of impulse and empirical experience.

This rational capacity is not just utilitarian—it is teleological. It exists to orient us toward what is higher, what is good, what is true. And supremely, it exists to lead us to God.

Self-Discipline Is Not Denial—It Is Direction

The Gospel and the saints urge self-discipline not because God delights in denial for its own sake, but because discipline is the door to our destiny. Every “no” to the flesh is a “yes” to the spirit. Every refusal of sin is an opening to grace. Holiness is not about repression—it is about right orientation. It is the harnessing of all we are—body, mind, and soul—toward the one end for which we were made: communion with God.

Seen this way, the Ten Commandments are not restrictions—they are liberations. They prohibit only what wounds ourselves or others. There is no good thing they forbid. They are not a cage, but a guardrail, protecting the freedom of the children of God.

The World, the Flesh, and the Lie of Powerlessness

The world tells us that self-restraint is unnatural, that virtue is an ideal but not a possibility, that indulgence is freedom and chastity is repression. But this is the ancient lie. The body can lie. Our selfish will can lie. Temptation dresses itself up as authenticity. But if we give in to the lower self, we are not free—we are slaves.

The saints are those who got over themselves. Who silenced the tantrums of the ego. Who chose righteousness when it was hard, purity when it was mocked, truth when it cost everything. And they did it not by superhuman strength, but by grace—and by choice.

Holiness Is Always a Choice

There is nothing about the pursuit of holiness that is impossible. It is difficult, yes. But not impossible. “Be ye perfect,” Christ says—not to taunt us, but to invite us. The way of virtue is always open. At every moment, you can choose the good. That is your power. That is your freedom. That is your dignity.

To be godly does not require brilliance, nor status, nor some mystical experience. It requires this: the decision to do what is right. Every time.

And when you fall, it requires the humility to rise again and make the decision anew.

The Ten Commandments Are Not Restrictions—They Are Liberations

The modern world often hears the Ten Commandments as a list of prohibitions, a moral straitjacket designed to limit freedom and suppress desire. But this is a profound misunderstanding. The Commandments are not burdens imposed from without—they are liberations spoken from the heart of a loving God who knows what makes for true human flourishing.

Each commandment guards something sacred. Each one protects a vital dimension of life and love. They do not restrict the good; they define it. They do not inhibit human potential; they release it from the chaos of sin and the tyranny of selfishness.

* “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” liberates us from idolatry, from the soul-crushing slavery of false masters—whether money, power, vanity, or pleasure—and grounds us in the worship of the one true God who alone gives life.

* “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” protects the holiness of speech and the integrity of our relationship with the divine. It frees our tongues from flippancy, deception, and misuse of what is sacred.

* “Remember the Sabbath day” is not a burden but a gift: an invitation to rest, to worship, to be reminded that we are more than what we produce. It liberates us from the idol of work and from forgetfulness of eternity.

* “Honour thy father and thy mother” affirms the sanctity of family and the gift of generational continuity. It is not a rule for submission, but a path to harmony, stability, and gratitude.

* “Thou shalt not kill” is self-evidently protective—but it also affirms the infinite worth of every human life. It declares that no life is expendable, and that justice is not ours to take by violence.

* “Thou shalt not commit adultery” safeguards the integrity of love and the beauty of marital fidelity. It frees us from the destructive lie that pleasure is more valuable than covenant, and that desire is more important than devotion.

* “Thou shalt not steal” honors the dignity of work, the right to private property, and the responsibility of stewardship. It restrains the grasping impulse and calls us to mutual respect and justice.

* “Thou shalt not bear false witness” upholds truth as the foundation of all human trust and society. It liberates our speech from manipulation and preserves the honor of others.

* “Thou shalt not covet” cuts to the root of so many sins: discontent, envy, greed. It is the commandment of interior freedom. To obey it is to be free not only from wrongdoing, but from the restless hunger that spoils joy and peace.

In short, the Ten Commandments forbid nothing that is for our good. They prohibit only what harms: what harms the self, what harms others, what harms communion with God. There is not one commandment that, rightly understood, restricts anything holy, noble, generous, or life-giving.

These laws are not chains but signposts. They do not say “You may not live,” but “Here is the way to life.” They are the spiritual grammar of love—both love of God and love of neighbour.

To follow them is not to be shackled, but to be free indeed.

If Everyone Lived the Ten Commandments…

If every soul on earth truly lived the Ten Commandments, the world would indeed be perfect. There would be no violence, no betrayal, no theft, no lies, no exploitation, no envy. God would be worshipped, the family honoured, the truth upheld, and every human life cherished. That is not fantasy—it is the ideal God Himself revealed as the path to human flourishing. It is the outline of sanctity, the moral architecture of a just and peaceful world.

But we live in a fallen world, where sin wounds even our best intentions. Perfection here may elude us. Yet imagine—not a world where everyone is perfect—but a world where everyone is striving to live the Commandments. Where people do not dismiss virtue as impossible or old-fashioned, but take it seriously. Where families encourage one another in holiness. Where neighbours cheer one another on in truthfulness, fidelity, chastity, generosity, reverence, and worship.

Imagine a culture where the prevailing spirit is not competition in sin, but cooperation in righteousness—where we are not scandalized by others' goodness, but moved by it; not threatened by virtue, but inspired to imitate it.

That would be no utopia—but it would be a world transformed. A nearly perfect reality, attainable not by force or fantasy, but by the mutual pursuit of what is truly good.

And that—that—is God’s will. Not only that we individually obey His law, but that we desire and help others to obey it too. “Exhort one another daily,” says the Apostle, “that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). The Commandments are not a private code—they are the common foundation of a redeemed humanity.

So let us not despair over the world’s fallenness. Let us build up a culture of striving. Let us will the good for one another, and help each other toward it. That is how the kingdom of God grows—soul by soul, family by family, community by community.

Until one day, that ideal will no longer be a dream—but a reality, fully revealed in the light of His glory.

This Is the Answer to Society’s Problems Today

The Ten Commandments are not relics of a bygone age—they are the enduring answer to the crises of our time. They formed the moral bedrock of Western civilisation, the foundation of what we call the Judeo-Christian world. From them came the dignity of the person, the sanctity of life, the honour of the family, the principle of justice, and the call to responsibility before God.

If that civilisation has faltered, it is not because the Commandments failed—it is because we stopped striving to live them. We abandoned the path, and then wondered why we are lost. We dismantled the moral compass, and then blamed the darkness. But the solution is not more theories, more programs, or more politics—it is a return.

If we came back—not perfectly, but sincerely—to the Commandments as the common rule of life, society could be transformed again. If we once more taught our children to honour their parents, to speak the truth, to revere the sacred, to respect the property and dignity of others, to guard their hearts against envy and lust—if we turned our hearts to the living God and taught others to do the same—then the rot could be reversed, the decay healed, and the beauty of Christian civilisation rekindled.

This is not nostalgia. It is vision. Not naïve idealism, but a sober and hopeful realism. We have the blueprint. It is ancient, yet always new.

The only question is whether we have the courage to return to it.

And that return begins—not with governments, not with institutions—but with individuals. With you. With me. With the choice to live, and to encourage others to live, according to the law of God written not only on stone, but on the heart of every human soul.

We Tried to Make Virtue Out of Sin

In our modern age, we have not merely abandoned the moral law—we have inverted it. We tried to make virtue out of sin, to baptize selfishness and crown it as righteousness. We were told that the pursuit of personal pleasure, self-expression, and unrestrained autonomy was the highest good. That to deny oneself was repression, and to indulge every appetite was liberation.

We rebranded pride as self-esteem, lust as love, greed as ambition, envy as fairness, and wrath as justice. We told ourselves that the old moral codes were outdated, that commandments were chains, and that freedom meant doing what we want, when we want, to whom we want.

But freedom divorced from truth is not freedom—it is slavery to the self. When we made selfishness righteous, we hollowed out virtue. We ceased to pursue what was good and began to worship what was pleasurable. And in doing so, we have reaped what we sowed: broken homes, shattered communities, isolated individuals, a culture sick with anxiety, confusion, and despair.

The irony is stark: we rejected the Commandments as too hard—and now live in a world made harder by sin.

Yet even now, the path back is not closed. It is still there, waiting: the path of repentance, of truth, of virtue. A return to calling good good and evil evil. A return to the God who alone defines righteousness—not by feelings, but by love grounded in truth.

And if we would recover society, we must begin by recovering that truth—starting in the soul.

We Don’t Need to Overthrow the World—We Need to Change Ourselves

There is a great temptation in times of cultural collapse to look outward—to seek grand solutions, political revolutions, systemic overhauls. And while politics has its place, it is not the starting point. We do not need to bring down governments or refashion entire systems. Those things will follow if hearts are changed. What we need first, and most urgently, is to change ourselves.

The crisis we face is not merely institutional—it is moral, spiritual, personal. We are not suffering from a lack of policy but a lack of virtue. And virtue cannot be legislated into being. It must be cultivated, soul by soul, family by family, community by community.

What would transform the world is not ideological conquest, but personal conversion. Men and women who choose to live the truth, to uphold what is good, to restrain their passions, to discipline their appetites, to seek God’s will above their own.

And as we seek this transformation, we must not punish weakness but encourage striving. We must recover the distinction between failing and refusing to try. The former deserves patience and support; the latter, honest correction. But even correction must be oriented not to shame, but to rehabilitation. Holiness is not about perfection from the start—it is about the will to keep rising when we fall.

We must learn again to be a people of both truth and mercy. Not soft in our standards, but strong in our compassion. A society that upholds the good and helps the fallen return to it is a society on the road to renewal.

The world is changed not by programs or protests, but by people—people who choose to become what God made them to be. That is the beginning of everything. That is how cultures are rebuilt: not from the top down, but from the inside out.

No One Denies the Goodness of Jesus

Across cultures and centuries, even among those who reject Christianity, one thing is rarely denied: the goodness of Jesus. His compassion, His wisdom, His courage in the face of power, His mercy toward the sinner, His unwavering commitment to truth and love—these shine even through the haze of skepticism. The world may dispute His divinity, but it does not easily dismiss His virtue.

And this is no accident. God did not reveal Himself as a theory, a moral code, or an abstract ideal. He became man. He took on flesh, entered history, and walked among us—so that we might have a person to follow. A face to look upon. A voice to hear. A life to imitate.

Jesus is not a symbol of goodness—He is goodness incarnate. He shows us, not only what God is like, but what man is meant to be. He is the pattern of holiness made visible, the commandments lived out perfectly in love.

God knew we needed more than rules—we needed a relationship. More than principles—we needed a Person. Not just a ladder to climb, but a hand to grasp.

And so He came.

To follow Jesus is not to chase after an unreachable ideal. It is to walk behind the One who has gone before us, who knows the path because He is the path. His goodness is not a challenge thrown down in judgment, but an invitation extended in mercy: Come, follow Me.

Conclusion

In Christ we have the “fulfillment of the Law” (cf. Matthew 5:17)—not its abolition, but its perfection.

We have in Him not just the One who spoke the commandments, but the One who lived them.

He is the Law in motion. The Word made flesh. The Commandments walked out in sandals, written not on tablets of stone, but on the beating heart of a sinless Man.

In Him, we see what it means to love God with all the heart, all the mind, all the soul, all the strength.

In Him, we see what it means to honour one’s mother, to bless one’s persecutors, to speak no falsehood, to covet nothing.

In Him, the will of the Father becomes a life poured out for others.

And so He does not simply tell us to follow the Law—He leads us in it. He goes before us. He makes the impossible possible, because He gives us more than example—He gives us grace.

And now, dear brethren, as we go forth into Passiontide and draw near to the Cross, let us not follow at a distance. Let us follow closely. Intimately. Let us take up His commandments—not as burdens, but as the path of love.

Because in the end, it is not rules that save us—it is a Person.

And that Person is Jesus Christ—crucified, risen, and reigning—who is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).

Follow Him—and you will walk not only through the shadow of death, but into the dawn of resurrection.

Use this veiled Passiontide to learn to follow Him and His embodied living of the Commandments, seeing Him with the eyes of faith. Amen.