When I was a college student I was involved with a group of other students engaging our community with the gospel. Our vision was simple. Adopt a block. Go back every week and ask if we can pray for them. Share the love of Jesus as we are able.
On one occasion, I met a man who was of a different faith. As chance would have it, I had just studied on that particular religion in my world religion class. I was primed to engage. But the Spirit, I believe, stopped me dead in my tracks and just gave me one question to ask the man. “Do you have peace?”
I ended up praying that he wouldn’t sleep until he had peace. God answered my prayer. He didn’t sleep for a few days and eventually we were able to share with him the peace that Jesus gives. I share that story because I think the question I asked that man on that day would be a good one for any of us (even professed followers of Jesus). Do you have peace? Is the life you are living one that is marked by peace or something else?
John Mark Comer has written Live No Lies, because he too has noticed that we are not a people marked by peace. Comer believes he knows the problem. As he writes, “the world, the flesh, and the devil are alive and well; and aided by our skepticism, they are wreaking havoc in our souls and society.” (xxii)
For centuries Christians have identified the world, the flesh, and the devil as the great enemies to our soul. Live No Lies is a reinterpretation of these ancient categories for our contemporary society. Comer’s translation of those categories looks like this:
The book is then divided into these three categories. How has the devil given us deceptive ideas? How does our flesh with it’s disordered desires interact with these ideas? And how does our society normalize these wrong ideas about reality?
The Devil
Each section also has a helpful “step sheet” which can be used to summarize the main thoughts of each part. Comer summarizes part 1 (the devil) this way:
The devil’s goal is to first isolate us, then implant in our minds deceitful ideas that play to our disordered desires, which we feel comfortable with because they are normalized by the status quo of our society. Specifically, he lies about who God is, who we are, and what the good life is, with an aim to undermine our trust in God’s love and wisdom. His intent is to get us to seize autonomy from God and redefine good and evil for ourselves, thereby leading to the ruin of our souls and society. (99)
The way to combat this goal, says Comer, is to engage in quiet prayer and Scripture reading.This sounds overly simplistic, but he is correct. It is simple, not simplistic. This was the way of Jesus and it has been the way of the church for many centuries.
Comer is certainly correct that the preferred tactic of our real enemy is to implant deceitful ideas into our minds. We see this from Genesis 3 onward. It is important to see how these ideas move from our minds to our hearts, as well. Ideas are always intending to land in the heart.
I appreciate that Comer puts a great deal of focus on ideas. I think he is correct that as we’ve dismissed the idea of the devil we’ve sort of adopted the notion that ideas are neutral and innocent. Telling someone to watch what goes into their minds, feels like Pharisaical advice from days gone by. But what if it isn’t? What if we would be far healthier and happier if we had a steady stream of truth going into our minds instead of devilish ideas?
The Flesh
When the devil gives a devilish thought it finds a ready home in the unredeemed heart fueled by disordered desires. Sadly, there is often a ready home in the remaining corruption within believers as well. Comer summarizes this section thusly:
The devil’s deceitful ideas are not random; they appeal to our disordered desires, or what the New Testament writers call the flesh. The flesh is our animal side, the primal, instinctual drives of self-gratification and self-preservation. The solution is not to white-knuckle our way through but to live by the Spirit via practices that enable us to draw on the power of God to live in freedom. (189)
One of the best things that Comer brings out in this section is the older idea, lost in our time, that “our strongest desires are not actually our deepest desires” (121). These deeper desires are “often sabotaged by the stronger surface-level desires of our flesh” (122).
Comer does a great job of showing how if we allow these stronger desires to win we end up shackled by our own impulse for freedom. His chapter on the law of returns may be worth the price of the book. It’s a helpful reminder that actions have consequences. I think our society gets this when it comes to things like finances, health, etc. but we seem to not connect this with what it means to follow our desires. I appreciate Comer’s work in this area. Choice eventually forms character. And as Comer says, “Character is destiny” (166).
The solution is to live by the Spirit. Here, the author encourages spiritual disciplines such as fasting and confession. These are things which reshape our disordered desires and help us keep in step with the Spirit. The section on fasting may be one of the best explanations and encouragement to fast that I have read.
The World
We not only have devilish thoughts which connected to our disordered desires but we have an entire society ready to celebrate us on our foolish plunge into ruin. Comer summarizes our final enemy this way:
The devil’s deceptive ideas get as far as they do because they appeal to our flesh’s animal cravings. But these in turn find a home in our bodies through the echo chamber of the world, which allows us to assuage any guilt or shame and live as we please. As a result, evil is often labeled good, and good, evil; and the soul and society devolve into a reign of anarchy via the loss of a moral and spiritual true north. In such an exilic moment, the church as a counter-anti-culture has the potential to not only survive but also to flourish as a creative minority, loving the host culture from the margins. (243)
Comer does a great job of showing why believers cannot be at home in the world. But he also does a great job of showing how this should fuel our mission instead of leading to discouragement. I think he is spot on when he says this:
Right and Left are no longer two opposing sides that keep each other in balance; they are two rival religions locked in holy war with zealots fighting it out online and, increasingly, on the streets of cities like Portland or the halls of DC. (214-15)
The world is a polarized echo-chamber. Christians cannot afford to be swept up into this way of thinking. We are called to be a remnant—to gather with our church and be different from the world (both on the right and the left).
Conclusion
Comer’s book is certainly thought-provoking. Knowing his majority audience, Comer is bold in some places. The context in which he ministers is not going to appreciate some of what Comer says about what he believes to be a biblical sexual ethic. There are also places where some of his readers (perhaps in a more Bible Belt environment) may not think Comer went far enough.
Personally, I think he strikes a good balance and his overall thesis is worthy of consideration. It is helpful to consider what devilish thoughts may have crept in? Where am I being exposed to lies? And how are these attaching to my disordered desires? I also found myself thinking about my surroundings a bit more. Which devilish ideas would have a ready home in the “world” around me? Both on my social media “world” and the real world in which I live.
His chapter on “law of returns” was particularly helpful and challenging for me. I’m 40 and thinking through many things in life. It helped me to think about how I’m investing in my children and family and church and society. It encouraged me to put rhythms in my life to nurture some things and mortify others. This alone will mean that this book was beneficial to me personally.
This is a book I would recommend. You can purchase here.
