God works through principles, like the principle of serving: if you want to be great in the kingdom, then become a servant. It looks counter-productive. In the world, people want to be great, they promote themselves; but God says no - if you really want to get ahead, this is how it works: become the servant, and gradually, God Himself will find the place to lift you up - either in this life or in the next.
3) “… to knowledge (understanding), add temperance”. Temperance means literally, to control yourself. Temperance means self-control. It means mastering your feelings and impulses; and of course, you know so many people and they can't do that. They live out of their feelings.
Self-control means not just controlling your actions; it means controlling your emotions, your impulses, your thoughts. It means delaying instant gratification. Even in the secular world, people know that if you can delay instant gratification, you set yourself up for success. “I can give you $5 now, or $1000 in a month” - there's so many people who just want the money now - they can't wait, and it's a characteristic of children. They usually take what will come now, rather than wait, because they can't see ahead; that, I’ll be much better off if I just delay this thing now, for the sake of that ahead of me. Based on this, people are caught up with impulse buying. They're caught into temptation to sin. All those things are usually quite impulsive. Self-control means I resist impulsive behaviour, and I maintain a direction where I'm going.
Self-control is a fruit of the spirit, so it comes as we yield to the spirit of God, consciously, and ask for God's help to overcome that thing, rather than just yielding to the impulse. Also, it requires emotional intelligence. You've got to be aware of your emotions; what you're feeling, and what others are feeling. That helps you manage your choices.
Examples of that would be Daniel and Joseph. JosEph. developed self-control. He was in a position of privilege. He was in a position where he sought serving the Lord, and the Potiphar's wife tempted him. Repeatedly, she tempted him, but he maintained self-control, and resisted her, even to the point where he was thrown into jail, and falsely accused. He was a man of virtue, who did what was right, and he was a man of self-control, so God raised him up, and made him a leader.
Many times, people focus on God raising Daniel up to be a prime minister, but they don't understand what he built into his life, that caused God to be able to lift him up. In Daniel 1, he was faced with the pressure to compromise his beliefs, and to drink the wine and eat the food offered to idols. He made a decision in conscience not to follow that, and eventually God promoted him as well.
1 Corinthians 9:25 – “Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things”.
If you want to be a winner, an athlete, you don't overindulge in anything. We need to control food, control drink, and control what we do - put it under management, so we don't get caught out of control in any one area of our life.
4) “…to self-control, add patience”. That word means: a steadfast endurance; persevering through difficulty. Stay the course, don't quit. Perseverance is the ability to bear up, and press through, when things are against you. In the Christian life, we experience many different difficulties, and opposition, and times where nothing's happening. People upset us and offend us. It's very easy to give up and walk away; but perseverance means that I stick with it, because it's a conviction - God put me here, and I'm going to see it through.
Perseverance can have a couple of applications. One is, continuing to do something when it's hard to do. It also means, to be able to wait for someone, that you believe will come. The problem for most Christians is, they don't realise that God works through processes, and processes take time, but we would prefer quick results. Hence, people up in altar call… won't just someone pray for me, fix me up, come and do this for me, that for me. But God values the process, and He uses processes and time to grow us. When you don't understand that, you can be very up and down and flighty in your Christian walk.