The World, The Flesh, & The Devil

Despite being a Christian for essentially my whole life, I've recently been realizing that I have come to believe certain unbiblical lies. They aren't so much lies about doctrine or even ideas that I have on a fully conscious level. Rather they are subtle but unhealthy mindsets or ways of seeing the world that I have come to accept over time. And the fact that they are subtle and partly subconscious makes them all the more sinister. It was this realization that drew me to John Mark Comer's latest book: Live No Lies. I thought it could help me sort the fact from the fiction in my worldview.

If you aren't familiar with Comer, it's time that you familiarize yourself! He's hands-down one of the biggest "up-and-comers" among Jesus-following thinkers. A friend of mine recently described him as "this generation's Tim Keller" and I know what he means. That being said, I don't know if Comer will ever achieve the highest levels of popularity in the Christian cultural bubble because he cuts against the grain of much of the thinking in that cultural bubble (in a good way).

Live No Lies is a book about the three enemies of followers of Jesus, sometimes called the "unholy trinity": the devil, the flesh, and the world. His thesis statement in the book is that the devil's strategy against Jesus-followers is to sow "deceitful ideas that play to disordered desires that are normalized in a sinful society." This is how the unholy trinity works together. The devil (1) spreads false thoughts into humans that take advantage of the sinful part of us (2) that we're all born with, and this evil concoction is then fortified when the culture we live in (3) tricks us into thinking that this isn't a problem.

In recent years it's become increasingly common to see some group of humans as the enemy. Liberals villainize conservatives and vice versa. We point fingers at people of different races, genders, ages, religions, or income-brackets as us as the reason for the world's troubles. But in this book Comer reminds us that, as Ephesians 6:12 says, our battle is not against flesh and blood. Rather it is against the spiritual forces of darkness and the sin that pervades us all both individually and communally.

Comer is excellent at comparing and contrasting the biblical worldview with other currently popular worldviews. Sometimes as followers of Jesus we can get lulled into thinking that the way of Jesus isn't too different from the way of the world. We look at the kind and generous non-believers around us and wonder if their values are more or less the same as us. While of course there will be certain ways that the values of those who do follow Jesus will overlap with those who do not, Comer helpfully points out many of the ways that the values, goals, and perspectives of our modern culture do no line up with Jesus' vision.