“Why was I attracted to pornography?  I was a Christian, wasn’t I? Was there something wrong with me? How could anyone love me if they found out?”

This is a glimpse into my struggle as a man coming to terms with my sexuality.

Years of struggling have led me to believe that as Christian men, we need to get real and understand that we are in the fight of our lives to hold onto sexual purity. The first step is coming to terms with what it means to be a sexual man.

God designed sex to be powerfully pleasurable and the driver of intimacy between a married man and woman. The entire book of Song of Songs is testament to the power sex has to unite two people. It is this power of sex to give pleasure and intimacy that has opened it to corruption in our broken world.

Men were designed by God for relationship. However, since the Fall, our masculine brain has been re-wired. The enemy has utilised the weapons of each age—from temple prostitutes to television advertising—to deceive men into believing relationships are defined by, and are fulfilled by sex. In our very core we have grabbed hold of this thinking and held tight.

Christian expert on male sexuality, Dr Allen Myer, describes a man’s brain as a chemistry set, and the chemicals engaged within sex are some of the most powerful. Testosterone, adrenaline, pheromones, and the natural opiates of endorphins and encephalins all come into play with sexual stimulation.

We need to accept that we are not ultra-spiritual automatons able to resist the onslaught of sexual material. Pretending sexually explicit material ‘doesn’t affect me’ or that ‘being a Christian makes me immune’ is ignorance.

Every man must come to terms with their innate propensity to fulfil their sexual desires in a way contrary to the design of our Creator. Recognising that we are hardwired for attraction to sexual stimulation is not a sin, but the first step in the fight to be sexually pure.  The danger for us is if we dismiss the real, caustic nature of sexual sin.

Pornography, promiscuity, sex outside marriage, self-gratification through masturbation, explicit fantasising, ogling female workmates and ‘harmless’ flirtation all have an acute, driving motivation toward self. They are all outlets designed to serve one person: me.

Indulging in these avenues of pleasure to gratify ourselves above anyone else eventually becomes a psychological cancer that can take years to remove.

For young men, viewing pornography, even occasionally, can develop a warped view of women and sex. This can lead to disillusionment in marriage when a wife isn’t able to live up to the manufactured sexual fantasies of pornography. Left unspoken and unhealed, this damage has potential to tear marriages apart. Or it can set a man on a long-term downward spiral into sexual fantasy, or in acting on his fantasies.

And no man is immune. Churches around the world have been ripped apart because one of the church leaders secretly indulged in pornography.

Even when Christian men identify and renounce the damage porn is capable of inflicting, the tender wounds, though healed by grace, are often pricked by needles of shame for years.

That’s why almost every book in the Bible warns of the dangers of allowing sexual sin to take hold. Sodom and Gomorrah, David’s sin, the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s epistles: the Bible clangs like an alarm bell about how seductive and destructive sexual sin is.

For Christian men, there is only one true course of action. We must engage in relentless, daily battle to be sexually pure.

Fighting a war requires understanding of the schemes of the enemy. 1 Peter 5:8 describes Satan as a lion ‘prowling around looking for someone to devour.’ That’s the enemy’s strategy: he wants us to believe we are unique in our sexual sin, that if anyone knew how deeply sexually sinful we are, they would cast us out as a perverted monster.

He tells us that God’s grace is not enough to save us. That we are too far gone to be counted among God’s beloved children.

We can answer these lies by bathing in the ocean of God’s grace. Reminding ourselves as in Hebrews 10:22 that we have been washed with the blood of the King’s Son, will help us understand our sins have been thrown into the deepest sea, never to be retrieved. We stand firm as the adopted children of God.

The fight for sexual purity is visceral, hand-to-hand combat. Day after day, we must engage in the mud and blood of our inner-selves so that painstakingly, with God’s help, we wrench our being free of the mire that is selfish, sinful, sexual expression. A half-baked masking of sexual sin in the form of sporadic behavioural change won’t cut it.

For men that may mean installing internet filtering software to remove the temptation. Or to disconnect our home internet or cable television so we don’t search for ‘sex-snippets’ to fuel sexual fantasy. It may mean our favourite social hang-out is a no-go-zone.

This is the battle we are marching into. The good news for Christian men is that we don’t have to fight alone. There are books and practical courses that can help men support one another in the fight to reclaim sexual purity.

Our sexuality is not designed to be our master. It is a pure and perfect gift from our heavenly Father. As Christian men we are called to be realistic, and battle to hold it in that light.

Brad Emery is a freelance writer and goes to Church By the Bridge, Sydney.