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Secular society is getting so many things wrong. Take divorce as an example. Some people think that divorce represents liberation from the patriarchy – but the author believes that men benefit from divorce much more than women. Divorce also has a devastating impact on children; it affects their ability to form healthy, intimate relationships as adults. Christians face three main enemies: the devil’s lies, desires, and the harmful influences of the world. The post-Christian culture of the West is particularly alienating for followers of Jesus, whose beliefs and values are no longer mainstream. In this challenging context, Christians should rely on spiritual practices such as quiet prayer and reading scripture; meanwhile, churches should become stable, close-knit communities to help Christians stay on the right path. Yes! As I’ve already said, this is Comer at his best. It’s engaging, conversational, thoughtful, and spiritually formative. You can’t often say all of those things about a book. So, yes: please read it!
I hold a master’s degree in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary, and these days, you can find me continuing to read, listen, and learn what it looks like to follow Jesus in community. In this provocative and practical book, bestselling author John Mark Comer combines cultural analysis with spiritual formation. He identifies the role lies play in our spiritual deformation and lays out a strategic plan to overcome them. Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature…. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.” In the eighteenth century, a series of suicides across Europe was blamed on a book – The Sorrows of Young Werther. This tragic novel by the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ends with the protagonist’s suicide, and it seems that some impressionable readers were inspired to copy his example. We prefer to think of ourselves as rational individualists rather than the emotional, relational, and easily manipulated social creatures we actually are.”For those of you that felt like 6 episodes wasn't quite enough, this one is for you. Roberta Ahmanson is a brilliant expert on all things Church History. For context, she logged in for this remote interview with John Mark from a library of 20,000 books, all of which she's read ... Based on the premise that there is much to learn from the Church's history, John Mark and Roberta rewind to the culture of 5th century Rome to discuss the parallels between that moment and our own, and how Christians functioned in the midst of it. Every time we sow to the flesh — or put another way, every time we give in to our flesh’s desire to sin — we plant something in the soil of our hearts, which then begins to take root, grow, and, eventually, yield the harvest of a deformed nature. . . . Thankfully, the same is true of the Spirit. Every time you sow to the Spirit and invest the resources of your mind and body into nurturing your inner man or woman’s connection to the Spirit of God, you plant something deep in the humus of your central fulcrum, which, over time, takes root and bears the fruit of a Christlike character.” Comer’s illustrations and phraseology are very US-based, and overall the book could be shorter, while still getting the main points across; in other words, parts of the book can be skimmed. But always be aware that there are gems here and that the overall thesis is vital and worth repeating until we really get the message.
As a pastor, the author is convinced that the key to survival is a combination of spiritual practices as an individual, combined with participation in the church community. Although Christians are living in difficult times of war, there is reason to be optimistic. They have everything they need to surmount their enormous challenges and live a life of happiness and freedom through God. Final Summary Having previously reviewed ' The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry' by this author, I was keen to see what his latest book had to offer, and I was not disappointed. How not to lose your soulThis insight about “deepest vs. strongest” desires is similar to the “important vs. urgent” idea. We need to stop choosing something now at the cost of something better later. One thing I’ve always loved about John Mark Comer is he includes really practical ways to follow Jesus. We use to call them spiritual disciplines, but both of those words tend to have weird meanings for people now. Comer includes some great practices to help us resist our stronger desires and get to our deepest desire, which is to be in relationship with God. The World
This quote hit hard. God has given humans the creative potential to imagine a possible reality and bring it into existence. The negative side of this power is that we can bring lies into existence as well. According to the author, the West is facing a spiritual apocalypse. Christians need survival strategies – and they can’t fight the battle alone. That leads us to another point: concepts of freedom. For secular society, the conventional definition of freedom is being able to do whatever you feel like, without constraints, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Our war against the three enemies of the soul is not a war of guns and bombs. It’s not against other people at all. It’s a war on lies. And the problem is less that we tell lies and more that we live them; we let false narratives about reality into our bodies, and they wreak havoc in our souls.”Right out of the gate, notice three things from Jesus’s teaching about this enigmatic creature he called the devil.
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