Quotes from Stephen Mansfield

The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement." —Aristotle, from The Nicomachean Ethics

What we want and need in our bitter, rebellious times is God, but unwilling to turn fully to him, we reach for idols and forfeit his intended grace.

But you will always be tempted and you need to know this. The devil is trying to shape your life with wounding and offense in order to keep you from a life defined by the purposes of God.

I am about to go the way of all the earth. So be strong and show yourself a man.

The more you rehearse the wrongs against you and the more you stay in that trap, the more the syringes of bitterness release their toxins into your soul.

If forgiveness is nothing more than a rearranging of our feelings, we have no defense against this. But if forgiveness is a formal process of sending sins and wrongs away from us and placing them upon Jesus on the cross, we have a barrier between us and the darkness that tries to come back in.

What kind of degenerate thinks it is manly to beat a woman—that he is somehow affirming his superior status in the world through violence against those he is intended to protect?

The solution is to forgive, to let go of the bait in that trap and pull yourself free.

Second, a man is meant to carry such responsibility that he will descend into exhaustion and resentment if he does not have the inner resources that come from living in connection with God. This is much the same for women, but that is the subject for another book by another author. The issue for men is, as much as they might try, they cannot do what they are assigned to do without strength and energy beyond their own.

A man is known by the company he keeps. We all know that we can tell a great deal about people by looking at those they call friends. It is also true that we can tell a great deal about ourselves by what our friends do when we hit hard times.

What kind of man breaks his vows, destroys lives, and violates the laws of God for false love and brief pleasures?

God will not free us until we free others.

It is time to let them go. Open the cages, tell them you're sorry, forgive them as Jesus forgave you, and burn that trophy room to the ground.

By 1831, he had determined to leave the grocery business and to begin manufacturing chocolate and cocoa. He had convinced himself that "drinking chocolate" could become an alternative to the gin and whiskey that were ravaging so many lives.

When I look at those I want to forgive, I strive to not see them in evil terms, but to find the compassionate narrative behind their hurtful actions against me.

It may even be that you can find absolutely nothing redeeming about the people who have wronged you. Perhaps the only hook of compassion you can find is to pity them in their sinful state. Whatever the case, if you can find even the smallest opening of compassion for their lives, that charizomai spirit of mercy and grace can flow in. Forgiveness can reign and you will be free.

The Bible teaches repeatedly that we each have a destiny—a specific calling and/or purpose—that is determined in advance by God.

Facing the reality of that painful season when it felt as though you were in a sandstorm with no skin is the key to becoming whole now.

True manliness is about the determination to act according to a noble definition of what it means to be a man. This is within the reach of every man, no matter how he looks or sounds.

There is no such thing as perfection on earth and certainly not in a church.

I keep it simple. I can't live up to God's standards without God's resources. I become the man I am made to be by living to the glory of God.

SOMEONE ONCE TRIED TO SUMMARIZE A PRINCIPLE IN Aristotle's epic work Poetics with these words: "Action is character." Now Aristotle was describing the elements of drama when he wrote his Poetics, so he didn't necessarily mean what I mean here. Still, his basic premise is true: we know what a person's character is by what he does.

NOTHING GREAT WILL EVER BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT GREAT MEN, AND MEN ARE GREAT ONLY IF THEY ARE DETERMINED TO BE SO. FOR GLORY GIVES HERSELF ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF HER." —Charles De Gaulle, from The Army of the Future (Vers l'armée de métier), 1941

Every Christian has a capacity for the most magnificent Christlikeness. Yet, every Christian also has the potential to commit the most disgusting and horrible acts of the flesh.