2 Peter 1:6

(6) And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness.—And in your knowledge [supply] self control, and in your self-control, patience, and in your patience, godliness. In other words, your discerning between good and evil must lead to avoiding the evil and choosing the good—i.e., to the control of your own lawless propensities; and in restraining these you must endure difficulties patiently; and your patience must not be the stolid defiance of the savage, or the self-reliant and self-satisfied endurance of the Stoic, but a humble and loving trust in God. Virtue and knowledge are energetic and progressive; they are exercised in developing the powers implanted in us. Self-control and patience are restrictive and disciplinary; they are exercised in checking and regulating the conflicting claims of many co-existing powers, so as to reduce all to harmony. There is special point in “self-control” being placed as the consequence of “knowledge.” The false teachers would insist that knowledge led to liberty, which with them meant emancipation from all control whatever. Self-mastery is to the world at large the opposite of liberty; to the Christian it is another name for it—that service which is perfect freedom. Patience to the world is to accept loss and suffering; to the Christian it is to win the best of prizes—“in your patience ye shall win your souls.”