“There are many of you who have entered this holiday season with loss because of your spouse’s addiction. Whether s/he still struggles with pornography or is in active recovery, there are moments when we grieve what we’ve lost because of it. When we notice the sense of loss creeping up on us, we have choices about how we will deal with it, just as we do with any type of grief. We can pretend it’s not there, we can put on a happy face to get through the holidays and then cry alone in the dark. Or we can be real with our spouse, trusted friends, and Jesus.”

“I saw a bumper sticker once that read, ‘Sin Now, Repent Later!’ Truth is, as blasphemous as that sounds, it’s what most of us do anyway.”

“Because of Christ’s work on our behalf, we’re free to reject sin and its misery, and instead embrace righteousness and its joy. When we do this we’ll experience a flood of God’s grace in our lives, restoring us to the abundant life of walking with the One who is our Lord, King, and best Friend.”

“In response to the great exchange that has been accomplished for us in Christ, there is an exchange accomplished in us by the Spirit: unbelief gives way to faith, rebellion is exchanged for trust. Justification—our being declared righteous and constituted in a righteous relationship with God—is not made ours by works, ceremonial or otherwise, but by the exercise of faith in Christ.”

“As long as we define our relationships by what we shouldn’t be doing, we’re encouraging people to hide their shadow selves from each other and God as they worry about not being accepted.”

“On the drive from the Calgary airport to the hotel for our honeymoon, my new husband casually mentioned that he would need to find a criminal defense attorney when we got home…”

“This larger insight seems to be the point. What we see in each other starts with what we see in God.”

“I repeatedly find that when I meet these five goals—welcome, know, hope, plan, commit—in session one, the counseling begins on a solid foundation.”

“At the end of the main talk, 6 truths about identity were put up on the screen along with this question, ‘Which of these do you struggle to accept and believe about yourself?'”

“Behind Ragnarok‘s improvisational, eccentric vibe is a message about the walls that provide the boundaries of our identity and how they have to be knocked down and rebuilt over time lest they become prisons.”

“So what do you do with that if you’re a man who follows Jesus and takes the Bible as true, but you aren’t experiencing abundant life?”

“We live in a catastrophic world (add stronger language here). This world is seriously broken; nothing is as it ought to be. We also live in a time of evil unleashed on the earth (surely you see evil ravaging humanity). Therefore, in a climate like ours, with a total loss of meaning, with brokenness all around and even within, as evil rampages, any series of choices towards the good is heroic. In a world of hatred, any choice to love is heroic. In an age of staggering unbelief, any commitment to faith is absolutely epic. In a world built upon the False, any ongoing commitment, however faltering, to choose the Real is heroic. And in a world totally stripped of gender, to choose the narrow way of masculine formation is utterly heroic and epic.”

“With little effort and a whole lot of pride, you too can destroy your marriage. And any time you do, you destroy a powerful image of Christ’s covenant love for his people. Sadly, the world will be happy to let you get away with this murder.”

“When we sin, do we put ourselves in the pigsty with the long journey home stretching ahead of us? Or do we consider ourselves in the Father’s arms? There’s a big difference.”

“Jesus flipped that script entirely. Jesus knew that it’s the other way around: that we belong before we behave. Sinners don’t become saints at a distance, so Jesus drew near to them and loved them – and his love transformed them. “

“Relating effectively to LGBT+ people begins with a desire to do so, but that desire must translate into practical change in our churches. Here are 8 practical ways to begin loving LGBT+ with humility as a church or ministry leader.”

“Children are exposed to sexually charged programming, information and contact at an increasingly earlier age. So, we need to be intentional in playing offense. If we play defense, we’ll have to deconstruct what they’ve heard first. We want to be the ones who frame how our kids see the world.”

“I think human sexuality has been a subject that has been kept under wraps as it were. I also think the Church has not been good about having open conversations, because there’s such a sense of perfectionist performance that we’ve turned the Gospel into some form of moralism or behavioral perfectionism. So everybody begins with shame and shame always drives you to isolation.”

“The irony, of course, is that I spun out of control with my sin by following the constrained understanding of love and grace that was being taught to me. I spun out of control as I followed the religious model for how to keep my life under control. I spun out of control by not taking God at His word on love and grace.”

“Many men grow up so scared of women they never develop healthy relationships with any of them; they don’t actually get to know a girl as a co-equal member of the human race.”

“I believe hope plays the critical role. You’ll find it pretty hard to love when you’ve lost hope; hopelessness collapses into who cares? And what does it matter that we have faith if we have no hope? Faith is just a rigid doctrine with nothing to look forward to. Hope is the wind in your sails, the spring in your step. Hope is so essential to your being that Scripture calls it ‘an anchor for the soul’ (Hebrews 6:19).”

“My first period of recovery was, honestly, one of the greatest experiences of my life. I felt this incredible sense of lightness, an inexplicable inner peace that, even when I felt like going back to drinking, never really left. For a long time, it motivated me to stay sober. Then I relapsed, and for what seems like no good reason. I wasn’t struggling, I wasn’t experiencing an intense urge and life seemed to be on a great path. But Satan is called the Tempter for a reason: He will exploit any weakness, even as he attempted to cause a weakened Christ to sin in the desert.”

“It’s not a stretch to say we are remaking humanity in some regard, and not in a good way. We are fundamentally rewiring the human race. And the biggest hit we are taking—not only with porn or technology but also in how they interact with each other—is the death of intimacy.”

“It’s tempting to mock the movie industry for such blatant hypocrisy. They frequently preach to us about their superior values; meanwhile, they were overlooking abuse in their midst. But instead of gloating we should consider what we as Christians might learn from the horrific, decades-long cover-up. Numerous lessons could be learned, but here are four specific takeaways we should consider.”

“Don’t let your limitations keep you from believing, embracing, and resting in his limitless love. When you stand before God one day you will not stand in shame. You will stand clothed in the righteousness of Christ. That is the gospel. And of this gospel may we never be ashamed.”

“I shudder to think what would have happened had God never exposed my sin and crushed me as he did. It was the worst and best year of my life. I would never want to go through it again, but I wouldn’t trade the nearness to God I gained from it for anything.”

“For Jesus-followers, our identity was ascribed to us the day we accepted God’s invitation to be adopted into His family. From that day forward, you’ve been the son of the King of Kings! That’s your true identity, ascribed by Almighty God!”

“Your husband will still make mistakes as he tries to make the biggest changes he’s ever made in his life. Many of these things do not come naturally to addicts and he will need a learning curve. He will become defensive at times and get frustrated. But you can expect faithfulness (no more porn or inappropriate interactions with others), serious motivation for recovery, and to be treated with respect.”

“Let me say it as clearly as I can: When it comes to sexual sin and addiction, recovery is not repentance, and repentance is not recovery. Repentance is not merely human effort. It is not a self-help program. Repentance is God’s surgical procedure, in which he not only humbles the sinner, but works a change in him that is visible from the outside.”

“While I know the passages and stories and laws about sex in the Bible, I’m more concerned with constructing (or recognizing) a coherent and distinctively Christian sexual ethic and placing it in conversation with the ethics of popular culture.”

“As we embrace His work now, often times through the practice of self-discipline, it is entirely appropriate for us to long for the day when that work will be done. For that will be the day when faith is sight, and at long last we will not only know the truth of the gospel, but we will feel it as well.”

“[O]ur abundance and increasing conveniences on every level have shaped — and in some ways warped — the way we view time. We now expect that nearly everything should happen fast and with little or no inconvenience.”

“Jesus pointed out that works are good as long as they’re truly motivated by faith and love. The Ephesians’ works, however, were ultimately motivated by something other than love. Yet Jesus didn’t leave the Ephesians, and He won’t leave us. As we’ll see, He provides us with grace and encouragement to love Him passionately, and He promises that we’ll live in His grace for eternity.”

“Crews isn’t being judgmental here. He’s speaking from the experience of heartache—an ugly secret he kept buried for eight years, dismissing his wife’s frequent questions about what was wrong, shoving it all into a sordid place in his heart that he could almost wish away from existence. Almost, not quite.”

“Those careless, thoughtless words in 2000 echoed into the future and slammed the door between me and my friend in her time of need. Everything else that had occurred since then—all the other times I spoke positively and affirmatively—was rubbish compared to those self-righteously spoken words—those words were the louder words, the indelible words, the words written in Sharpie marker, the only words she could recall in the crucible of suffering.”

“However cute that woman might be that you’re tempted toward, ask yourself if your legacy is worth destroying for a moment of stolen pleasure. Your sin will quickly turn into a bitter aftertaste you’ll be spitting out of your mouth for the rest of your life. But God is positioning you and your wife to bless the generations yet to come. Embrace the vision! Don’t throw your legacy away!”

“Jesus knows the kinds of people he has chosen to save. We can seek him, and we will find him true and good for the long haul. My friend was honest, no secrets before God. He was honest to confess where and when he struggled. He was honest with friends, who helped him to seek and find the God who promises many mercies. He was honest in asking help from other people: accountability and prayer, counsel and conversation with brothers. He rebuilt a life that had good in it. He learned to treat both men and women as holy brothers and sisters, rather than as sexual objects.”

“There are four misconceptions that many hold about pornography addiction and the betrayed wife. Being aware of these myths will help you improve your counseling strategy to these women.”

“People who choose to get divorced have often endured years of frustration and exhaustion, but the problem is, we tend to make our worst decisions when we’re exhausted and frustrated. These twelve questions below can help you approach these major life decisions with more clarity and perspective.”

“Have you had that experience? Hope doesn’t come. Happiness doesn’t flood your heart. The clouds of depression don’t blow away. Overwhelming struggles simply overwhelm you more. Relationships are not restored. What can we do?”