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Baker Publishing Group - Craig Gross , Steven Luff

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84 pages

English

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Description

When it comes to sex and sexuality, men often find themselves in a losing battle against temptation. Whether it's overt pornography or simply oversexualized images of women, media can be a man's worst enemy. In this straightforward book, Craig Gross and Steven Luff help men understand and embrace the true purpose and role of sex in their lives. Whether single or married, all men must cope with sexual temptation--sometimes on a daily basis. This honest treatment of an uncomfortable issue will free men to experience forgiveness and renewal.

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	7
EAN13	9781441213044
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2010 by Fireproof Ministries
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2010
Ebook corrections 02.01.2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-1304-4
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Craig Gross is represented by Wheelhouse Literary Group, 1007 Loxley Drive, Nashville, TN 37211.
To protect the privacy of those whose stories are shared by the authors, some names and details have been changed.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Foreword by Stephen Arterburn
Introduction by Craig Gross
Introduction by Steven Luff
1. The First Step: Acceptance
2. Friends in Need: Confession and Accountability
3. So That ’ s What’s Going On! Defining the Addiction
4. It’s Not What You Think: Defining Normal Sexuality
5. A Good Plan: Starving the Addiction
6. Go Time! Accepting the Challenge
7. Grab Your Shovel: Embracing Your Faith
8. It’s Going to Be Okay: Forgiving Your Weakness
Appendix: Sobriety Sheets
Notes
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Back Ads
Back Cover
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Foreword
The struggle against lust and immorality in our culture really is a war—a war that feels like heat-seeking missiles coming at you every day. You cannot escape the lust bombs passing by, popping up on the web, featured in movies, or glaring at you from billboards and magazines. It’s as if someone has alerted the cosmos that you are vulnerable, an easy target, and likely to fall back into the very thing that has brought you the most shame, remorse, dread, guilt, frustration, hopelessness, disconnection, and confusion. The temptations are there—they are not going away—and all of the new starts with more effort are not ever going to be enough to help you survive the war with your integrity intact.
Most likely you have done some very sophisticated research on yourself and have amassed significant data on what will not work in stopping your obsessive mind or compulsive acts. Your research has proven that effort is not the key. Even more effort is not the key. If you have yet to find that key, allow me to tell you what it is: humble willingness. It is not glamorous; it is not something many people are clamoring for, but it really is the key to a brand-new life.
Humble willingness leads you to try something different. It helps you lay down your pride so you can pick up your character. It helps you persevere by reaching out to others when you would rather keep your life in hiding. If you are willing to take the path laid out within these pages, there is great hope.
Your desire to read this book indicates you are willing to learn something new or even try something different. Your heart is headed the right direction—but it can do a 180 on you at any time. If you are humble and willing enough to follow the path laid out in this book, you will live as the man you have always wanted to be.
What we really want is to be men who walk uprightly with integrity and authenticity. We want to be admired for the character we have developed by the choices we have made and the temptations we have rejected. We want to develop lives of integrity where all our parts are integrated together, congruent and consistent and blended into a healthy whole. That is what real men do. That is who real men are.
If I have described your situation, frustration, and desire, this book is going to help you. It is a place of safety and protection, and inside is a path you will never regret walking.
Since coauthoring the book Every Man’s Battle with Fred Stoeker, I have talked to thousands of men just like you and just like me. We have good intentions and great desire, but these are never enough. We need a path to follow that helps us connect with others, stay connected, and avoid immoral things that cause us to hide and cover up like little schoolboys who don’t want to be caught by an authority figure (e.g., a spouse or a girlfriend who plays the role of mother). This book will help you stay the course, and it will develop you into a better man.
I applaud you for reading this far and hope that you will read on. As you do, I hope you will find a new understanding of yourself and what it takes to dump the crummy stuff from your life. I hope you will be able to walk with your head held high or lay your head down on a pillow for restful sleep because there is nothing to hide, feel shame over, or regret.
Craig and Steven are pathfinders, and if you will follow them, you will find the real life of a man. I hope you will jump in with both feet and start walking. And when you are tempted to stop, I pray you will stay the course.
You understand, don’t you—this is not about merely quitting sin. It never has been. It is about building a new life; it’s about relating and connecting and enjoying intimate moments you have never experienced before. Much of your time might have been spent trying repeatedly to quit, but because you thought it was all about whether you could quit, you could not. There is a big difference between quitting and accepting that you have a problem that is not going to go away by merely quitting. You must build a new life, and the way to get there is by journeying with others over time.
This wonderful book will help you get beyond the quitting and into the living and loving and becoming somebody’s hero. It will help you find purpose and meaning for your life and move you so far beyond the rut you have been stuck in that you will never go back. Eventually you will become so busy and fulfilled helping others dig out of their ruts that you will be amazed you were satisfied with anything less.
Okay, that’s it from me. It is time for you to step up and step out of a lust-filled rut and into this wonderful life called sexual sobriety.
Stephen Arterburn coauthor of Every Man’s Battle
Introduction
Craig Gross
There are a number of good books on the market today that discuss overcoming the lure of pornography, but many of them include addiction to pornography along with other addictions, and a few are too complicated to be easily accessible. That’s the reason we wrote this book. This is a pared-down, easy-to-use version of the basic steps any man needs to find wholeness.
Most Christian men have already agreed that using pornography is not only destructive but sinful. They agree porn separates us from God’s plan for our lives. We assume you agree and want to end the cycle of self-hatred, shame, and embarrassment that comes with using pornography.
We expect most readers of this book will be professing Christians, but this is certainly not required. Anyone can achieve healing by implementing the principles outlined in this book.
However, it is important for non-Christians who are struggling with porn use to realize they may be struggling because they have not explored faith. Skeptics on this point should consider the largest addiction recovery program in the world—Alcoholics Anonymous. Seven of AA’s Twelve Steps center on a need to submit to God as part of the healing process. Have a look at the second and eleventh steps:
2. Come to believe that a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve your conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for you and the power to carry that out.
In addition to assuming the reader understands the pitfalls inherent in pornography use and the fact that he is pursuing or interested in pursuing a Christian God, we recognize and stress the fact that all of the rhetoric, all of the logic, all of the meetings and support groups and accountability partners in the world won’t mean a thing if the person who needs to make a change doesn’t accept that he needs to make a change and then take the steps necessary to make that change.
This book should be viewed as a funnel. At its mouth, we invite and accept all men—you—who struggle with addictions to pornography right where you are. Carefully we will lead you down through the cone to the narrow opening at the end of the stem. Here, you will emerge into a new space: knowing how a healthy Christian should think and act in terms of your sexual behavior and what tools you will need to use daily to remain faithful. Men will enter this funnel at different points; regardless, we begin this book at a place where everyone can enter and find healing.
At significant points in this book, we have included questions to help you reflect on your challenge with pornography. These questions represent essential aspects of your healing. If you truly want to live a life of sexual sobriety, you must understand, deliberate on, and answer these questions affirmatively before you move on to the next section. Since overcoming addiction is largely a mental and spiritual exercise, rebuilding how you think, in the right seq