Fruit of the Spirit: How Faith Builds Self-Control in Men
Based on the podcast from February 6, 2026
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The Super Bowl of Self Control
The fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22 ends with self-control, and most men treat it as the hardest one on the list. Not because they do not want it, but because everything they have tried to manufacture it on their own terms has eventually run out. Tommy Moore, a former NFL official who worked the 2011 Super Bowl and spent 50 years officiating football from Texas high school through the highest level of the professional game, sits down with David L. Savage, founder of The Savage Path Ministries Corp, to explain how self-control as a fruit of the Spirit is not a character upgrade you earn through discipline. It is something that grows in a man after something prior changes underneath.
What Does the Bible Say About Self-Control That Willpower Cannot Deliver?
What does the Bible say about self-control? Galatians 5:22 places it alongside love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness as fruit of the Spirit. Not fruit of effort. Not fruit of good intentions or white-knuckle restraint. Fruit of the Spirit is produced in a man the way fruit is produced on a tree: not by forcing it, but by being rooted in the right thing. What the Bible says about self-control, in other words, is that its source is not the man. It is what grows in him when the Spirit has room to work.
Tommy Moore's story puts flesh on that theological reality. He describes his years before faith plainly: he drank too much and did business the way business was done in the 1970s (drinks at lunch, drinks after work, social pressure treated as a professional obligation). He was not a man without discipline in other areas. He was working toward a career that would eventually take him to the Super Bowl. But what the Bible says about self-control and what willpower produces are not the same thing, and he had not yet experienced the difference.
The moment that changed it was not a decision he made. He had been jogging at a track in Conroe, Texas. He stopped at a small bar called Touch. He sat down, ordered a beer, and before he could lift it, heard a voice (audible, he says, as clear as David's voice across the table from him) that said two words: "That's enough." He put the beer down and walked out. That was 40 years before this conversation. What the Bible says about self-control as a fruit of the Spirit is that it arrives through surrender, not striving. Tommy did not develop self-control and then give God the credit. God intervened, and self-control followed.
The honest actionable step today: Ask yourself honestly whether your self-control is something you are producing or something you are receiving. If it keeps running out, the source may be the problem.
What Does Spiritual Discipline Look Like When Faith Is the Foundation, Not the Supplement?
Spiritual discipline, in the way most men experience it, functions as a supplement. You add a quiet time, a Bible verse on the dashboard, a prayer before meals. These things are good and Tommy Moore practiced all of them. But spiritual discipline as a supplement is fragile because it sits on top of whatever else is holding a man up. Spiritual discipline as a foundation is different: it is what everything else is built on, which means it does not depend on whether the man is having a good day.
Tommy describes the pocket card he carried into every game for decades. One side held officiating mechanics: see the play, read the play, make the call. The other side held Scripture. Psalm 118:24 was there. Zechariah 4:6 was there. Philippians 4:13 ("I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me") was there. At halftime and timeouts, he would pull it out and read it. Spiritual discipline, in his practice, was not a morning ritual he left at home. It was something he brought into the heat of the game deliberately because he knew he would need it there.
The closing wisdom he offers to David's audience is structured the same way. He does not offer tips. He offers a theological chain. Pray for wisdom. Wisdom leads you to ask, and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened. That door opens to knowledge. Knowledge teaches you the way, the truth, and the life. That life leads to understanding of the kingdom and the power and the glory. Spiritual discipline, in Tommy's framing, is not a checklist. It is a path that moves a man deeper into something larger than himself. He has been walking it for 40 years, and the composure that everyone around him noticed for five decades is the fruit of it.
The honest actionable step today: Identify one moment in your week when pressure reliably undoes you. Build one deliberate spiritual practice (a verse, a prayer, a pause before responding) specifically for that moment. Not as a supplement. As a foundation stone.
How Controlling Anger With Faith Held Up Over 50 Years of Being Screamed At
Controlling anger with faith is the part of this conversation that lands hardest for any man who has tried to manage his temper through technique alone. Tommy Moore stood on NFL sidelines for 25 years with his back to coaches who were, in his words, sometimes saying things you wanted to respond to. He wanted to let them have it. He says so directly. The urge was real. What kept him from acting on it was not a strategy he developed. It was what he had already built before he got to the sideline.
Controlling anger with faith produced in Tommy a specific kind of response that is harder to develop than it sounds: the ability to give the other person a way out without backing down himself. When a coach crossed a line, Tommy would turn and ask one question: "Are you talking to me?" The coach almost always said no. Tommy would say he did not think so. The moment deflated without escalating. Controlling anger with faith, in practice, looks like that (deliberate, calm, non-reactive, and not without backbone).
He also offers the word of wisdom he says he would give any young man: do not give the devil a ride, because he will want to drive. That is not a metaphor about the devil being sneaky. It is a practical observation about how anger and provocation work. You let something in a little, and it takes over. Controlling anger with faith means deciding in advance what you are going to let in the car and what you are going to leave at the curb. Tommy Moore made that decision 40 years ago at a bar in Conroe. Everything that followed (the NFL career, the Super Bowl, the legacy he left in officiating) was downstream of that single choice to let God drive instead.
The honest actionable step today: Write down the last time you reacted in a way you regretted. Ask whether the root was a lack of technique or a lack of surrender. The answer changes what you do next.
How Faith as the Foundation for Self-Control Shows Up in Galatians 5 and in Tommy Moore's Life
The fruit of the Spirit passage in Galatians 5:22 is worth reading slowly in light of Tommy Moore's story. The list is not a set of targets for a man to achieve through effort. It is a description of what grows naturally in a life rooted in the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit includes self-control as the final item, which means it is the culminating evidence of a man who has walked the whole list. It is not the starting point. It is the result.
- Love: Tommy treated players and coaches with basic human dignity even when they gave him nothing in return
- Patience: 50 years of absorbing verbal abuse without escalating requires a patience that does not run on reserves alone
- Kindness: He would tell a player "good catch, good play" after a well-executed route, even in a tense game
- Faithfulness: He opened every crew meeting with prayer for decades, consistently, whether anyone noticed or not
- Self-control: He stood in front of screaming coaches at the Super Bowl and worked the next play
Men All Over the Country Know This Feeling
There is a man reading this right now who has tried to get his temper under control more times than he can count. He has read the books, made the resolutions, apologized to the people he loves after losing it again. He does not live in one zip code. He is in small towns and major metros across the United States, from the Texas Hill Country to the Carolinas to the Pacific Northwest. He is tired of the cycle and privately starting to wonder whether what he is missing is not a better strategy but a different source entirely. Wrestling with the Inner Man exists for that man. Tommy Moore's 50 years of poise on the most hostile sidelines in American sports is not a self-improvement story. It is the fruit of a surrendered life, and that fruit is available to any man willing to let go of the wheel.
Self-Control Is Not the Goal. Surrender Is.
Tommy Moore did not set out to become a model of composure. He set out to stop drinking at a bar in Conroe and listened to a voice he could not explain. What grew out of that moment (the career, the character, the legacy, the wisdom he still carries at 82) is what Galatians 5:22 calls the fruit of the Spirit. Self-control as a fruit of the Spirit is not something a man produces. It is something a man receives when he finally stops trying to run his own life and hands the wheel to Someone more qualified.
When you are ready to find out where you are on the path, take the next step here and use David's self-assessment tool built for men who are ready to get honest.
To connect with David directly about speaking at your men's event or group, reach out here and start that conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the fruit of the Spirit self-control?
A: Galatians 5:22 lists self-control as the final item in the fruit of the Spirit. It is not presented as a goal to strive toward but as a natural outcome of a life rooted in the Spirit. Tommy Moore's story illustrates this directly: his composure on NFL sidelines for 50 years was not the product of technique or willpower. It was the fruit of a surrendered life that began with a single moment of divine intervention 40 years before this conversation.
Q: How can faith help me stay calm?
A: Tommy Moore's answer is that faith does not help you stay calm in the way a coping strategy does. It changes what you are rooted in, which changes what grows out of you under pressure. He carried Scripture on a pocket card into every NFL game for decades and opened every crew meeting with prayer. Those were not crisis interventions. They were practices he built before the pressure arrived so that when it did, he had something more durable than willpower to draw on.
Q: How do I stop reacting when people push my buttons?
A: Tommy's practical answer is a single calm question: "Are you talking to me?" It is not submissive and it is not aggressive. It reframes the moment, gives the other person a way to de-escalate, and refuses to reward provocation with a reaction. The deeper answer is that the question only works if a man has already done the prior work of deciding, before the moment arrives, what he is going to let drive his behavior. Tommy made that decision 40 years ago.
Q: What does it mean that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit and not just a discipline?
A: Fruit does not grow because a tree tries hard. It grows because the tree is rooted in the right soil and getting what it needs. Self-control as a fruit of the Spirit means it is a natural outcome of a life connected to God, not an achievement a man earns through effort. That distinction matters practically: if a man's self-control keeps running out, the problem is probably not that he needs a better strategy. It is that he is drawing from the wrong source.
Q: What wisdom did Tommy Moore leave for young men on self-control?
A: Tommy offered several nuggets at the close of the conversation. He told young men not to give the devil a ride, because he will want to drive (meaning, do not let provocation or temptation get a foothold). He quoted from Proverbs: a happy heart is good medicine. He said to love your wife the way Jesus loved the church and raise your children in the way they should go. And he offered a theological chain: pray for wisdom, and wisdom leads to asking, seeking, and knocking (Matthew 7:7), which opens into knowledge, which leads to understanding of the kingdom, power, and glory. The whole chain, he said, is what holds a man when things get hard.