Being renewed in the spirit of your mind is an essential factor of Christian living.

And when your mind perceives what is right and what is best and what is pure and what is holy, then it begins to order the responses of your emotions and your will.

Welcome to Grace to you with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

Perhaps you find it easier to read your Bible, pray, and meditate on scripture when your life is going well. But what about when money is tight? Your health fails. Your enemy won't let up. How can you make sure that under any circumstance

you're growing spiritually and honoring Christ? Find out today as John MacArthur continues to show you

a practical path to spiritual maturity.

That's the title of our current study here on Grace to You.

And so now with today's lesson, here is John MacArthur.

When the scripture says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

It touches on the core of all spiritual life. For everything you do in your

spiritual life is a product of how you think. Attitudes determine responses and behavior. And for a

Christian then to grow toward maturity in Christ, for a Christian to be productive and effective,

he must be established in certain

essential, fundamental ways of thinking. And we've chosen to call these attitudes. If you can train

your mind by the power of the Holy Spirit to certain thinking habits that are righteous, if you can

have what the New Testament calls a renewed

mind, then you have put together the foundation for a godly life.

Peter knows that, and so at the end of this epistle written to some Christians who

are being persecuted, he pulls together a series of final commands, and they call for fundamental

attitudes that God requires and that lead to spiritual maturity. Starting in verse 8, we find the

fourth necessary attitude for spiritual maturity, an attitude of self-control, an attitude of self-control.

...