Ep. 51 | Three Reasons Our World’s a Mess and What We Can Do About It.” - What’s on My Bookshelf

Highlights

Live No Lies, by John Mark Comer

Deceptive ideas play to disordered desires that are normalized in a sinful society.
 
The Devil The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Disinformation is at the root of almost every single problem we face in our society and our souls Soak your mind and imagination in Jesus’ truths before you are assaulted with the devil’s lies.
The Flesh Every time you think or do something it becomes easier to think or do that same thing again, and the more you repeat this process the harder it is to break the self-perpetuating cycle. Cells that fire together, wire together. At first we make our own decisions, but then our decisions make us…The lies we believe, lead to behaviors we can’t leave. What Scripture reading is to our fight with the Devil, fasting is to our fight with the flesh. For confession to yield…freedom, it must drag our sins into the light…Just the act
The World The world - a system of ideas, values, morals, practices, and social norms that are integrated into the main stream and eventually institutionalized in a culture corrupted by sin…The distorted becomes normative…If you can make it trend, you can make it true. Every follower of Jesus in every culture has to constantly ask the question, in what ways have I been assimilated into the host culture? Where have I drifted from my identity as a Christ-follower? A growing number of people are more loyal to the ideology of their political party than they are to Jesus and his teachings. We can't follow Jesus alone. And by following Jesus together, we are able to discern Jesus’ truth from the devil’s lies, help one another override our flesh…, and form a robust community of deep relationships that functions as a counterculture to the world. In doing so, we’re able to resist the gravitational pull of all three enemies of the soul. To say “yes” to Jesus invitation is to say no to 1000 other things. As the monks used to say, "every choice is a renunciation." It's 1000 tiny deaths that all lead up to one massive life. It’s… the freedom of yielding to love. It's saying to Jesus, “whatever, wherever, whenever, I am yours.
 
Other books by John Mark Comer: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, (2019) Practicing the Way, (2024)

Three Comer Interviews: https://careynieuwhof.com/mypodcast/ #’s 316, 440 and 626

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/ id912753163?i=1000507476227

 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/ id912753163?i=1000534517644
 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-carey-nieuwhof-leadership-podcast/ id912753163?i=1000642615384
 
Restoring the Foundations: https://restoringthefoundations.org/