I’ve always got a few books on the go. Some of them I even finish! One that I read right through recently is John Mark Comer’s latest, ‘Live No Lies – Recognise and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace’.
I’ve got a lot of time for John Mark Comer. He’s young (well, from where I am standing he is), well thought through, Biblically smart, culturally savvy and an excellent communicator (albeit in a Millennial American kind of way!).
In ‘Live No Lies’ he takes on the subject of the Christian’s war against our three great enemies: the world; the flesh; the devil.
The world – the ‘way things are’ in the culture that we all live in. Humans have an interesting relationship to culture. On the one hand we make it – we create films, write books, construct education systems, make art, pass laws defining ‘right and wrong’ etc – and the other hand we are then made BY it. By living in a certain culture, we just ‘pick up’ the way things are, because they have been normalised for us by what is acceptable to those around us. We tend to go with the flow, without ever asking where the ideas that have shaped our culture come from.
The flesh – the ‘way we are if left to ourselves’. The New Testament is clear that we have a problem buried deep within our psyche. We have a bias away from God. Our desires cannot be trusted but must be measured by God’s Word. Jesus was clear on the matter: ‘But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander’. (Matthew 15).
We have a heart issue. We cannot trust our natural desires. What I want may not be what God wants for me – or even what is best for me.
The devil – the enemy of all that is good and right. Belief in the existence of the devil is on the wane, which is just as he wants it. For me, I cannot understand the Bible story, nor specifically the teaching and practice of Jesus, if there is not a personal force of destructive evil in the world. Jesus, we are told, ‘came to destroy all of the works of the evil one’ (1 John 3:8). That’s what he was about.
The Devil seldom has a ‘name’ in the Bible. He is mainly described by his work: ‘the accuser’; ‘the destroyer’; and above all ‘the deceiver’. Satan’s chief attack on God’s world is not through direct demonic assault, but by deceiving people to shape their lives apart from God (think Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden).
Jesus put it plainly when confronting the religious rulers of his day: ‘For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44). Satan is the ‘great dragon who deceives the whole world’ and ‘the ancient serpent who leads the world astray’(Revelation 12:9).
So, we are at war against the world; the flesh; the devil. Three formidable forces ranged against God, and therefore against those who follow him.
Back to John Mark Comer! In his book he connects these three anti-God forces by discussing how
Deceptive Ideas (from the Devil)
Play to
Disordered desires (the Flesh)
And become
Normalised in a sinful Society (the World)
As Christians we are not defenceless, but if we want to resist these forces we have questions to ask ourselves and decisions to make in each arena of warfare:
Do I spend enough time absorbing God’s worldview through Scripture so that I can spot the Devil’s lies when they appear?
Am I willing to deny my fallen desires to follow Jesus, or will I follow my fallen desires and deny Jesus?
Am I aware how much contemporary culture is shaping me (and my children), and am I ready to pay the price to stand against ‘the way things are’?
There’s much, much more in the book, and I highly recommend it. It’s not a hard read, but it is an important one in my view.