Every Man's Battle Quotes

“She’s pledged to be yours sexually. Her sexuality is her most guarded possession, her secret garden. She trusted you would be worthy of this gift, but you’ve regularly and cavalierly viewed sensual garbage, polluting and littering her garden. She deserves more, and you must honor that.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“I asked for her hand, and then he said something to me that has remained engraved indelibly in my memory over the years: “Though I don’t know you well, I know you’re the kind of man that will do what you say. I know you’ll take care of her.” Never in my life had a man believed in me so, trusting my manhood and entrusting me with something so valuable.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“In the Bible, however, God tells us the opposite: we’re first to act correctly, and then right feelings will follow. If you don’t feel like cherishing, cherish anyway. Your right feelings will arrive soon enough.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Today’s supercharged “sexual harassment” environment is just one more great reason for a good defense perimeter. One wrong aside, one wrong suggestive comment, and you could land in huge trouble—and it could cost you your career.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Consider the many Star Trek television series and movies. What did each starship captain cry when danger approached? “Red alert! Shields up!” In a similar vein, when an attractive woman approaches your corral, your defense perimeter must immediately respond, Red alert! Shields up!”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Transform your brain to understand your rights, because your rights are clear here: you have none. Who are you to be attracted to her? Didn’t your Master already give you your wife? Doesn’t He own you outright, at a steep price?”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“It isn’t a lack of grace that dooms us (see 2 Peter 1:3–4); it is a lack of commitment from us to build our defense perimeters and to stand up and fight. As guys, we simply haven’t chosen to learn to control our bodies in holy and honorable ways, even though it’s clearly God’s will for us to do so (see 1 Thessalonians 4:3–”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Here’s a good working definition of it, good because of its simplicity: you are sexually pure when you’re getting no sexual gratification from anyone or anything but your wife. In other words, victory means stopping the sexual gratification that comes into you from outside marriage. But how do you stop it?”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Character work needs to be done so that the warped synaptic pathways in your brain can die, as grace “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12).”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Much later that morning, as his emotions finally ebbed, Randy told me something I’ll never forget. “Fred, I have dozens of young women working for me in my stores, and do you know what I hear constantly from them? They tell me, ‘Randy, I’ve never been around a man like you. I’ve never been able to trust a man in my life—not even my father, my brothers, my cousins—nobody. You’re the only man I’ve ever felt safe to be around.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“John Eldredge, who wrote the following in his classic book on maleness, Wild at Heart: There are three desires I find written so deeply into my heart I know now I can no longer disregard them without losing my soul. They are core to who and what I am and yearn to be. I gaze into boyhood, I search the pages of literature, I listen carefully to many, many men, and I am convinced these desires are universal, a clue into masculinity itself. They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.*”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“The University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Mary Anne Layden is perhaps America’s leading researcher into porn’s impact upon the brain, and she was invited to speak to our senators too. Perhaps you recall Steve saying that men receive a chemical high from sexually charged images and that part of the chemistry is the secretion of epinephrine into the bloodstream, locking into the brain a picture of the sensuality you’re viewing. Dr. Layden discussed this exact process when she said, “That image is in your brain forever. If that was an addictive substance, you, at any point for the rest of your life, could in a nanosecond draw it up [and get high].”*2 Any honest man knows this is true from his own experience, and if he’s even more honest, he knows he doesn’t need today’s tsunami of digital technology on his smartphone to freeze these tantalizing images of the female form into his brain.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Every Christian child—everyone “born again”—has his Father’s DNA. But only the mature child has his Father’s character. Learning to think and act like Him no matter how it affects our spots on the social ladder is what Christianity is all about.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“We end up valuing what’s around us in the world far more than we value the Word. I see that reflected everywhere I go because the male brain is the same everywhere I go.”
― Stephen F. Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Simon Baron-Cohen explains the contrasts between male and female brains in his excellent book The Essential Difference. He writes that most men have “S-type” brains predominantly hardwired for understanding and building systems (including social systems), while women predominantly have “E-type” brains hardwired for empathy”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Women aren’t like men. Men aren’t like women. The Bible tells us so, and modern science has proven it time and again. Significant brain differences between men and women lie at the root of these gender distinctions, and one of those differences explains why men so easily dilute God’s standards.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“so let’s slow down a moment to ponder what that last paragraph really says, which is this: Our created, physical makeup as men sets us up to fall into sexual sin without conscious effort when we live in a sensual, sex-drenched culture like this one.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“The hormone epinephrine is part of this pleasure chemistry. It’s secreted into the bloodstream and locks into the memory whatever sensual stimulus you’re viewing at the time of the emotional excitement. In fact, epinephrine can be released merely by using your mind’s eye.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Over the past twenty years, brain science has further detailed much of the brain chemistry involved in these addictive patterns that bind us, which is a key reason why we are updating Every Man’s Battle.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Come on!” you reply. “This stuff happens all the time.” Could be, but listen to these troubling words from Jesus: “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“One day a fellow named Mike was telling me about renting the video Forrest Gump. “Boy, it was great!” he exclaimed. “Tom Hanks was brilliant, which is why he won the Oscar for Best Actor. I laughed and cried all the way through it. I know Brenda and you rent good movies for your kids. You should get this one. It was really clean and wholesome.” “Oh, I can’t watch Forrest Gump with my kids. In fact, I can’t even watch that myself, Mike,” I responded. Taken aback, Mike asked, “Why? It was a great movie!” “Well, do you remember that scene at the beginning where Sally Field has sex with the principal to get her son into the ‘right’ school?” “Uh…” “And how about the bare breasts at the New Year’s party? The nude on-stage guitar performance? And in the end, when Forrest finally ‘got the girl’ in the sex scene and she conceived a child out of wedlock? Sure, in the movie, everything worked out nicely for Forrest anyway. But that normally isn’t how life goes in those situations, so I don’t want to teach that to my kids. I don’t want them to hear all that grunting or see the nudity, either.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Every Heart Restored”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“I believed this book could transform more marriages more deeply than nearly any marriage book I could think of.”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time

“Holiness is not some nebulous thing. It’s a series of right choices. You needn’t wait for some holy cloud to form around you. You’ll be holy when you choose not to sin. You’re already free from the power of sexual immorality; you are not yet free from the habit of sexual immorality, until you choose to be—until you say, “That’s enough! I’m choosing to live purely!”
― Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time