Balance your spiritual life

The Bible teaches a well-balanced spiritual life achieved through the increment of Christian graces listed mainly in 2 Peter 1 as shown above. Faith is given as the starting point, the firm foundation upon which to add building blocks of virtue, knowledge, and so on. When God tells you to add or give diligence it means there is work for you to do. God saves and sanctifies us but He cannot give us good habits and good character. These we must add to our faith by taking the initiative of forming habits around virtues just as we formed habits of doing vices before salvation. 
 To have a full-orbed spiritual life you need to supplement your faith with virtue. Virtue refers to moral excellence. A man of great of faith who lacks moral excellence is a fraudster, a true hypocrite. The unbalanced gospel of prosperity has caused some Christians to be financially and materially sound but morally bankrupt. When it comes to moral uprightness there are no exceptions, both the shepherd and the sheep must weigh the same.
Faith and virtue are powerful but the Christian is not complete with these alone. Attach to these virtues ginosko — the progressive knowledge of God gained through deep appreciation of secrets and treasures of the kingdom of God. Study the word to know God and His ways more fully in order to apply it correctly in your life. According to 2 Peter 1:2 grace and peace are multiplied not through prayers and giving but through the knowledge of God. 
Faith, virtue and knowledge are good but the Christian is still not complete with these alone, join on these virtues temperance. Self-control is important because there are many things and people poised to provoke us to say or do evil. To be temperate is to be even tempered. Emotions and feelings like anger and lust need constant checking. Without self-control human depravity can sink below that of the animal kingdom. So far so good, but the Christian still needs to add patience to his character. In this case patience conveys the idea of enduring hardness, bearing with evil and long-suffering.
Long-suffering is an attribute of God. God loves us to the uttermost end of all our sin, meanness, selfishness and wrong. He endures our wrong-doing till we repent and come to Him. So when He asks to add patience He is actually saying that we must forgive others, forbear with one another in hope of their repentance and conversion one day.
Patience is making room or an allowance for mistakes knowing that people are not perfect.  Patience is an amazing characteristic that keeps people of opposing opinions, dispositions and temperaments together until  the one  with the wrong attitude repents or until their shared assignment is accomplished.  If God were impatient with us, none of us would make heaven.
To the above-mentioned virtues, add godliness. Godliness means being like God in holiness and righteousness. It involves speaking, thinking and acting from the standpoint of God. To godliness please add brotherly kindness which means feeling for others, showing mercy and care to those in need.
Most of us are cruel judges but if we remember that we sometimes participate in the same sins we are judging others we will judge sparingly. Kindness is like a boomerang, throw it well and it comes back to you.
Finally add love- the crowning of all spiritual qualities. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another. It should be unconditionally given to God first and to other people second. This divine love may be spontaneous but it must be cultivated and maintained by discipline. With all these qualities the Christian becomes well-balanced, fruitful and useful.

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