“Modern identity ends up crushing people because they’re responsible for validating their own value, but we just aren’t up to that task—it’s not how we’re designed. All of us look for validation outside of ourselves. We’re full of conflicting and changeable feelings and beliefs, so it’s never stable. It’s fragile.”

“Whether or not you functionally recognize it, at the epicenter of your sexual world exists a God of awesome power, glory, and grace. Sex in its rightful place in your heart and life always begins by recognizing that he is at the center.”

“No matter what you do and how much you know, if you remain in isolation without strong support from some other believers, you will not find freedom from porn and sexual addiction. I was a pastor for 26 years but had a secret life of sexual addiction for eight years until the truth came out. I am in my 13th year of recovery, and it has happened because I am strongly connected with other men who help keep me accountable.”

“Instead of focusing on why porn itself is “bad” and unhealthy, and expecting his young son to simply listen to him and never think of porn again, Savage tried a great idea: putting porn in a broader context, and giving his son the tools to understand just why porn is so hurtful.”

“The power and presence of God is guaranteed from the beginning of creation. This same guaranteed grace is on offer everywhere today. The producer-consumer model we’re used to gets turned on its head: Because God made us, sent his son to save us, and sent his Holy Spirit to sustain us. Grace means that we have to work not to have God in our lives.”

“The thief on the cross should give us hope for those we know who are far from Christ. They may be caught up in the darkest of sins. They may be fully committed to their love of darkness. They may have scoffed and rejected Christ at every opportunity. But there is still hope.”

“Imagine the best father you know. God is infinitely better than that. Consider your love, if you are a parent, for your children. God’s love is infinitely better than that. We are either orphans in a world that doesn’t care, with all its self-centered and self-serving people, or at the center of the universe there is One who will never turn us away.”

“This post is an excerpt from Step 2 of the True Betrayal seminar manual. If you read the content and feel like this is a very weighty step, you are right. But it is a vital step in marital restoration. It is advised that you and your spouse have a counselor or mentoring relationship to support you in this process.”

“Neither the struggle nor the terror is uncommon. How, then, do we create an environment in our churches, small groups, and families where we can even have this conversation, where Lily can share her struggle without fear?”

“In our own context, one of the most seductive false gospels is moralism. This false gospel can take many forms and can emerge from any number of political and cultural impulses. Nevertheless, the basic structure of moralism comes down to this — the belief that the Gospel can be reduced to improvements in behavior.”

“Jesus, they told me I could lose my salvation. Is that true?”

“Many men want great friendships without any risk factor. Sharing an area of struggle or telling someone who you want to get to know them better feels risky. It is risky. People can misunderstand us, judge us or otherwise disappoint us. If we’re honest, we’ve all known some form of rejection in our lives and we’d prefer to avoid that in our future. But the ability to be our authentic selves, our good, bad and ugly selves, is impossible without vulnerability.”

“While we should never think there is a magic formula for marital happiness, there does seem to be certain Gospel actions associated with miraculous recovery.”

“While I don’t know that I would write these exactly the same way were I to do it again, I enjoyed going back and revisiting these, in part to see how the Lord has grown both Emily and I in the years since. Thankfully he has been extremely gracious, and given me a very patient wife who has helped me grow out of some of the silly attitudes and behaviors I allowed to creep in. And how he continues to be gracious as Emily patiently helps me grow out of my current silliness.”

“These audio segments were taken from the live presentation of the “Hope & Restoration After Sexual Abuse” seminar presented at The Summit Church May 23 and 25, 2013.”

“How can we better hold law and grace in an effective tension that allows us to maintain our convictions and also show love toward those who do not?”

“Simply having these, sometimes very awkward, discussions helps your kids process and re-encode how their brain deals with porn. It decreases the shame. They start to realize they don’t have to keep their parents and porn in separate places in their brain. It means they aren’t alone.”

“The cultural perceptions of love speak so loud, in fact, and with such consistency that we would be naive to think we don’t enter into romantic relationships with a picture based largely on our surroundings.”

“This is an article for guys who are thinking of leading other guys. That might be into the woods, but it might be as a group in a community. Could be two dudes in a dorm room. We’ll start with general thoughts and move on to specific ideas.”

“This is not to suggest that believers are called to confess every sin to their pastor. Instead, it is focusing on some specific or more aggravated sin in the life of a believer that has perhaps brought about severe consequences. No matter what objections or nuances may be placed on this suggestion, it is clear that there is a blessing attached to confessing sin to the elders or other members of the local church of which one is a part. By way of deduction, we may say that the prayers of the elders and the people of God function as means of grace when one comes to them in brokenness and confession.”

“The more we soak ourselves in the love of Jesus, the more the fruit of the Spirit will naturally appear.”

“What happened between 20 and 50 years ago? The sexual revolution. No-fault divorce. Out-of-wedlock births. The study shows the pragmatic results of pursuing a sexual ethic we’re not designed for. Doing things as God designed for us actually has pragmatic benefits.”

“In this post I offer nine points of reflection to help you identify whether making the time and energy investment in counseling is wise for your life struggle. The more of these points you identify with, the more likely counseling would be a wise step for you.”

“Now, there’s a distinction between making a bucket list and having some things you would like to do and experience with your family if God gives you the opportunity. That is fine, of course. But if it is the bucket list in the sense of, ‘I’m going to kick the bucket, and this is my only opportunity as a physical person to do things in a physical world’—that’s utterly and completely unbiblical, contradicted start to finish by 1 Corinthians 15 and every passage that speaks of the resurrection and eternal life.”

“Our attempts, as followers of Christ, to grow in faith and ministry are valuable—but, ultimately, they serve to reveal our much greater need for his intervention. Regardless of the spiritual feats of greatness we’re attempting to accomplish in 2018, we must do so inChrist and with the gifting of his strength—apart from him, we can do nothing.”

“More lies, masked as fears, fell flat of my worse expectations–a pattern that continued throughout my journey of freedom from porn’s addictive grip. By the way, Satan still tells me those same old lies. Except now I’ve wised up to his snake-in-the-garden-like tactics, and so can you. Shame is the voice of lies and the chief liar is Satan himself.”

“Dan is a renowned author, speaker, theologian, and psychologist whose writing, teaching and counseling has helped countless men and women find healing, redemption, and restoration for their soul and story. Enjoy the interview!”

“Meanwhile, as it erodes the bonds of trust that keep your marriage together, porn also ruins your wife’s self-worth. It’s not hard to see why this happens. A woman will obviously begin to feel inadequate if her husband would dredge the depths of PornHub, searching desperately for literally any woman but his wife to satisfy his urges, rather than enjoy her.”

“Have you gone too far for God to love you? What’s that sin that you committed that haunts you at night? You know, the one that if everyone found out, you’d be ruined? Consider that the people who Jesus goes to battle with are not the prostitutes, the downcast, the outcast, vagabonds, or drunks. It’s not the greedy tax-collectors, the broken down peasants in the countryside, the Good Friday thieves who were crucified on either side of him or even the Roman guard who nailed him to the wood.”

“In retrospect, you see things you didn’t think about. You didn’t date long enough to see how she responded to stress. You didn’t plan for all these expenses. You didn’t realize how tired she’d be after working all day and how that would affect her interest in you. You didn’t think it would be this hard to have a kid and keep it fed, dry and quiet. And maybe you didn’t think she would show up on your radar. . . the perfect girl who has none of the issues your wife has.”

“It does not take long for men to discover that their sin will work its way into their parenting. It starts in the hospital when they are born and does not let up until we meet Jesus face to face. Sin, in general, harms our parenting, but there are some specific sins that trip us up.”

“We don’t love others because we are good people, we don’t even love God because of anything in and of ourselves (1 John 4:19). This is great news for us. It means we can ask God—the same God whose power changed our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and whose power enables us to love him—to use the same power to enable us to love our neighbor as ourselves.”

“What really bothers me is that Christians are so spiritual they can’t enjoy the fun and celebration of Christmas…and don’t want anybody else to enjoy it either. I strongly suspect they once received underwear as a Christmas gift that was the wrong size…far too small. And instead of exchanging that underwear, they just keep on wearing it.”

“Why would Jesus command us to be perfect when He knew it was impossible? Was He just setting us up for failure? Toying with us?”

“Kids learn to love what makes their parents light up. I see it in my own kids now. My oldest son brings me the Sunday comics, points out a good strip, and waits expectantly to hear me laugh. All of my sons are adamantly loyal to my college team only because they know that I am. And when I ask them what they’re thankful for, they’ve learned to add a spiritual element, because they know Who it is that I love.”

“So when temptations came, my main recourse was to white-knuckle my way through. And there was rarely a sense that the outcome was sure, that I knew my flesh would be subdued. It was like watching a live football game between well-matched teams, with real suspense over who would win. Praise God, I never acted on sexual temptation while married. But I did lose battles in my heart and mind frequently enough. This area of my life was managed but not joyful.”

“Porn is so compelling because it sells itself as the perfect substitute for real communion and relationship. It stimulates our desire to be loved and wanted to the breaking point. It is the ultimate fantasy of fulfillment.”

“[I]n all of my years of watching my favorite painter, I think that I’ve been missing the point. Ross didn’t just want to paint pictures. He wanted to teach other people how to paint pictures.”

“[W]hat if our cultural moment isn’t a death knell, but a trumpet call to something new? What if the church is only facing the loss of the deadweight of Christendom, while the Spirit gives birth to a fresh wave of winsome witness?”

“[U]nderneath all of our tragic attempts at finding masculinity lies something even more tragic: our shame at not being men. The surest thing a man knows about himself is that he is not one. He is not what he was meant to be. The shame of this resides deep in the core of our being, permeating everything we say and do.”