Official Blog For Author Fred Stoeker

          Question: Hi, I have been reading Every Heart Restored and it has really been changing my heart and perspective on my relationship with my fiance. We are supposed to get married in the fall and he recently confessed to me that he has cheated on me and has an addiction to porn. Naturally, I was devastated at first, but realized that we have two options. We can either let the devil continue to ruin this and end our relationship, or we can fight to reestablish our foundation in Christ and to see where God takes our relationship. This isn’t unforgiveable for me and I know it will take time to trust him again, but is it silly of us to pursue this relationship or am I just setting myself up for an unhappy married life? He is repentant and genuinely sorry, but this has been going on for quite some time (without my knowing, but not while we have been engaged). Is it wrong for me to question whether or not he can change and lead our relationship? Thank you for listening and thank you.
for writing this book, it has really helped me to understand my fiance and that if we continue in this relationship that there is hope for a Godly marriage.
          Answer: As you know from my book Every Heart Restored, it is not foolish to think he can change as long as there are clear evidences that he is trying to change, beyond the tears and repentance. Tears and repentance are not enough. Is he reading the “purity trilogy” for young men?  (Every Young Man’s Battle, Tactics, and Hero?)  If he isn’t reading those AND putting the biblical principles from those books into practice, I don’t think he will be changing enough for me to advise marrying him. Reading isn’t enough. He must be putting the principles into practice if he’s to break the addiction.

          Next, is he being fully accountable and fully open about what he did? Is he making excuses, or taking full responsibility and putting defenses into place that will defend his sexuality and his integrity in the future? You have to see these changes now, before marriage. If you don’t see the changes now, before marriage, you cannot be sure he will change after marriage. Like many guys, he may believe that marriage will finally take the issue away. It will not. He will have to fight this at some point, and win. If I were you, I would make sure he is truly fighting it before the wedding takes place. Most women tend to think that their boyfriend’s sin will go away once he is getting regular sex in marriage. This is not the case. It can’t be the case, because a lack of sex isn’t really the issue when it comes to sexual sin. The issue is the addiction and the dependencies that lie beneath the sin, and he’ll drag those right into marriage with him. Regular sex with a wife won’t stop the sexual sin.

          I would recommend that you read both Tactics and Hero as well as Every Heart Restored. That can give you some real help in terms of understanding the issues behind his sin, and in teaching you how to come alongside and help him with his purity even before marriage. Another help would be the book The Healing Choice and the workbook The Healing Choice Guidebook, by Susan Allen (you can get them on my website). These will help you understand how to think about the healing process and to know whether he is really fighting this. But the most important ones for you to read would be Tactics and Hero.

          Let me know if you have more questions. He doesn’t have to be completely perfect before marriage, but he needs to have changed dramatically and begun fighting this with a passion, for his reasons and for the sake of his own connection with God, not simply for the sake of his connection with you. You’ll be able to tell the difference by the way he engages the battle.

Fred Stoeker

           I am so incredibly thankful for the work that the Holy Spirit has done in your life and through the books you have written. It has truly been an inspiration to me as a 22-year old man with a heart that is thirsty for the word and for purity as God takes me down this awesome journey called life!
           I had never really grasped how sexual sin had created a cage that kept me from loving girls as Christ did and, more importantly, from maturing in Christ as the Lord wants me to. I have read Every Young Man’s Battle, as well as Every Man, Gods Man, and I loved them both! I am almost done now with Tactics, and I look forward to diving into Hero, and then finally Every Man’s Challenge.
           One of the things that I absolutely love about your books is how biblically-centered they are. While the battle for sexual sin is a personal endeavor with decisions and choices that we as men need to make, but none of it could be possible without the power of the Holy Spirit and the example of Jesus, and other Godly men like Job. I am pumped to engage in this battle!! I feel like we as men in the Christian community have become soft and weak-willed and have just accepted the fate of sexual sin racking our lives. But that’s not biblical at all! Your books have inspired me to lead a small group that’s full of community, accountability, and testosterone. Thank you for leading by example!

    I’ve not been able to put down Every Young Man’s Battle. I have even been yelled at for reading it when I was supposed to be going to sleep! How ironic!  But the Lord is getting a hold of me with His loving but ever-present hand.  Already, I can actually sit down and read and pray without feeling like a hypocrite!  I can finally say, “I am free from the bondage of sin” and not be lying!  Praise God!
    I can’t wait until I begin reading the follow-up books, Tactics and Hero!  I can only imagine how much more the Lord will change me through these great resources. I pray that I can use these books around my school to further the gospel.  The book has changed me and made me go from hypocrite to genuine Christian, and it’s only been three days!  I know I can use these books to reach the lost.
    Thank you for actually putting your reputation on the line to write these books for people like me.  I know the God has used you in more than just my life, and I am sure that He will greatly reward you for simply obeying Him and spreading His sin-freeing power! I am forever grateful!

          As a sixteen-year-old, I’d have to say the book Every Young Man’s Battle was possibly the best book I’ve ever read. The suggestions you put in it, the practical ways to avoid thinking the wrong way, and the guide to using the armor of God effectively have completely changed my thought process about my sexuality. I no longer struggle with impure thoughts, or try to find boundaries around masturbation just because I want some way for it to be biblically okay. As the leader of my youth group’s praise band, I experienced one of the closest connections with God during the songs as I have ever felt after reading this book. My mind is so much purer, my heart burns with more of a passion, my girlfriend and I couldn’t be any closer and I have so much more potential in having my relationship with God absolutely flourish. Everything you suggested really works, unbelievably so. Thank you so much for everything. It changed my life.

Testimony and Question: I agree with one of the comments you made in a radio interview that young women should read Every Young Man’s Battle, too, because it helps us to know how to protect the men in our lives. 
         My boyfriend and I are trying to maintain a sexually pure relationship, so we have verbally set rules and boundaries for our physical relationship together. It is definitely a battle that is worth fighting. Because of mistakes I made in a previous relationship, I know how intense and wonderful that physical intimacy can feel, but is definitely not worth the consequences that come with pre-marital sex.
         Still, I struggle with the enemy over the following question: If we avoid anything that stimulates physical pleasure, will we lose our attraction for each other by the time we are married because we have conditioned ourselves not to think about each other physically? We love hugs and cuddling, but sometimes that can lead to further thoughts, too. If we avoid anything lovey-dovey during the dating process, will we destroy the romance and spark that we feel about each other?
         Answer: My son Jasen and daughter-in-law Rose recently co-wrote a book called Hero with me. In chapter 11, Sparks, they address this question fully, and can happily attest that the romance and spark does not have to die or change due to the boundaries and the purity.

        I’m a sophomore in college.  My parents got me your book Every Young Man’s Battle when I was a sophomore in high school. I wasn’t struggling with a lot of sexual sin at the time except for masturbation occasionally, but other than that I was living a pretty pure life.  So when I started reading your book, it seemed like it wasn’t the book for me because I hadn’t been looking at pornography, so I just read bits and pieces and then put it away.  

         The following summer I started my slide into porn.  It took me over so fast I didn’t know what to do, and it continued to eat away at me until the summer after my freshman year at college. I was working at a summer camp when I came to my senses and suddenly realized what I was doing to myself. I talked about it to my accountability partner and I decided to stop. It wasn’t easy, but before long, instead of finding satisfaction from porn, I was repulsed by it. I convinced myself that it was over and I never was looking at it again. 

        The problem, though, was that I was still filling myself up with lust from outside sources besides porn.  I had cut porn out of my life, but my heart was still fighting my worldly desires.  After a while, I started dating a girl I have liked all through my spring semester the previous year. Being with her was the greatest feeling I ever had, but after I told her I struggled with sexual sin, she left me on the spot. That was very hard to take at first because I had been free from porn for a while, and thought I was pretty pure. 

        Less than a week later I found your book again, Every Young Man’s Battle. I figured I should start reading it again to see what had gone wrong in my life. The timing of your book couldn’t have been better this time around. What I found changed my life completely!  The most important thing I learned is that becoming sexually pure is more than cutting out porn or masturbation. It is an issue of the heart. I learned so much about how to keep myself pure and to stay pure so that I can tell the next girl I date that I have been pure, and so that I can grow more in God right now. I recommended your book to my leadership team on my hall and I hope they will take it to heart and purify themselves from sexual sin.  God bless your ministry. Keep up the good work.

I recently read the book Every Young Man’s Battle, and it has changed my life! It opened my eyes to a lot of things that had to change in my life. For the past two years, I was addicted to pornography, and it messed me up bad. This past July I got right with God and I was able to break the habit and be open about it with some people that I really trust.

But even though I had given that up, my mind was still plagued by the images I had seen, and it felt like I was wrestling with my mind every day. I really wasn’t aware of this until I read the book, and it hit me that even though I had stopped looking at porn, my mind wasn’t pure. I would see a girl that resembled a woman I had seen on the Internet, and my mind would go nuts. I was mentally exhausted every day.
 
Every Young Man’s Battle helped me to realize that my thought process had to change, and the best way to do that was to study scripture. God revealed so many things to me over the past couple weeks. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 helped me realize that my body isn’t my own, and I have no right to be doing things with my body that aren’t holy, and no right to look at women lustfully. It was like I’d had a big revelation, and I was finally able to see what it means to be sexually pure. Bouncing the eyes has helped me a lot, and things have gotten a lot better.
 
When I read that you had made a covenant with your eyes and how it helped you, God also laid it on my heart to make a covenant with Him, as well. Of course, at first I bought into one of Satan’s lies, “You can’t do it, you’re not strong enough.”  And that’s really what I thought until I came to Matthew 17:20, which promises, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for YOU.” This verse made me certain that I could do it, and that God was going to be my source of strength. So I made this covenant with God:  I am not going to kiss another girl until my wedding day. He showed me that everything is reserved for marriage, and that I shouldn’t get physical in any way with a woman until we are united before God. After I made this decision, things got extremely easy! It was kind of weird. For the first time, ever I finally had total control of my mind.
 
Yesterday I met someone that is struggling with pornography, and I am going to let him read this book, too. I love the fact that I can help someone else achieve sexual purity, and I thank God everyday that I came across this book.

Once you have victory over sexual sin, you will likely desire to help pull others men out of the prison and into the light. Many ask me, “Fred, how do I start a ministry to help others win over sexual sin?”
All I know is what I’ve experienced with God, and that is that God is the one who promotes, and He usually promotes me only after I’ve stepped out in obedience. First, I obeyed His word about sexual purity, especially Ephesians 5:3 and 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. We won the victory together. After that, I stepped out and began teaching these truths openly and regularly to men and to married couples and high school students in classes at my local church, just as he calls us to in Psalm 51.
Once I had stepped out like this and continued being obedient and being faithful in the small things, then the Lord placed a deep prayer burden into my heart, and I prayed for a voice in his kingdom with great desperation for about a year. After stepping out in obedience in prayer and intercession, He then answered that prayer by impressing me write my story into a manuscript, and He made sure it was published so that I might have a voice in His kingdom. Once the book was published and I proved myself faithful and satisfied to teach in any small church or venue that would invite me, and once I’d remained obedient in prayer as I went out, then He promoted me to larger venues of 1,000 to 15,000 at a time.
For me, it was obedience to His biblical call that led to my victory over sexual sin, and then continued obedience that led to my ministry, and then continued obedience that led to more and more open doors. As I look back, I couldn’t have done what I’m doing today on this wider scale without first learning and experiencing all I did on the smaller scale. I think this “obedience/promotion” plan of God’s is a good training model, much like Major League Baseball’s farm system, of going from Rookie League to A-Ball to Double A ball to Triple A ball and then to the Major Leagues. Don’t despise the day of small beginnings. Be faithful in those small things. The Lord has much to teach you, and He wants you to become stronger and stronger before He tosses you into the rougher, churning spiritual waters defended by the bigger, stronger spiritual enemies. 
So, while you pray for that bigger voice in His Kingdom, be anxious to excel in the smaller ministries of leading small groups and teaching others in classes at church. Learn and grow. As you step out, remember that He has His eyes on you and is developing you as a great leader. Be both urgent and patient to be that strong pillar in your local church as God prepares the paths and opens the doors before you.

When I bought your book Every Man’s Battle, I thought it was just another book; one of those books that will tell me how to avoid having intercourse. But on going through it, I got more that I paid for. Even though I had made a vow with God not to have sexual intercourse again until marriage (and I have not since 2005), I was still heavy in pornography and masturbation. Your book opened my eyes that these sins were just as weighty as intercourse itself.

I want to particularly comment on your “Bouncing Eye” principle. It works. It is just a week and some days that I finished reading the book. After I consciously avoided looking at tempting pictures for a few days, now my eyes actually avoid tempting images on their own. Sometimes they do not just bounce but close completely. Thank God! I have also logged on to the net several times without entering a porn site. Considering who I was, this is a major achievement and I am extremely grateful to you for using your experiences to teach me.

Thank you for putting that book in the market. You have saved my life from destruction.

I emailed you a few months ago and told you my story and asked you what books you recommend for me, and I want to thank you for responding. I just finished your trilogy tonight (Every Young Man’s Battle, Tactics, and Hero) and I have been challenged in ways I have never dreamed possible.  I’m still single, but God has laid it on my heart to prepare for marriage by fighting for my purity, by reading Christian books on marriage and by asking my pastor for advice about marriage even before God allows me to meet my wife. The most important thing I’ve learned besides how to fight for my purity is that I need to encourage my brothers and my sister’s in Christ to join me in the fight. God has laid it on my heart to buy your trilogy for the other guys in my youth group. I already bought one set for one of the guys and I’ve let my youth pastor borrow my set. I’m so excited to see what God as for me in the next few weeks and months with in this battle. I also want to congratulate you on being a strong influence upon your son and family, and tell Jasen and Rose that I said congrats on their marriage and winning their fight. Thank you again for writing these books. May God bless you!