This is kind of a long one and it's mainly just for my own benefit so I don't forget the important things I learned, but I read this book over the Christmas break and it affected my heart deeply.
If you haven't decided to put your trust in Jesus Christ and allow Him to take over your life's purpose then this post likely won't make a lot of sense but if you have, then maybe you can relate.
In this book, John Mark Comer talks about the three challenges that every Christ follower is going to face: the devil, the flesh, and the world.
Challenge #1 - The devil: For me this one hit home. Not as some terrifying cartoon character with a tale but as the ultimate deceiver. In my life, I can navigate uselessly just by believing lies or making decisions and living in a collection of wrong ideas.
Comer talks about how the devil's goal is to isolate us, then implant deceitful ideas that play to our disordered desires. In other words, we don't even need to do the wrong thing, we can just believe the wrong things and be defeated and discouraged. The answer (from him and also, for me) is to immerse yourself in scripture... not just to think ABOUT scripture but to think scripture.
For me, this is ongoing. It means writing down any wrong thoughts and then writing the truth below it, with verses from the Bible and with applications to my life.
What's the thought, feeling/sensation?
What's the lie?
What's the truth?
Comer also talks about spiritual disciplines that allow us to grow as people and in our walk with God. He outlines silence, solitude, prayer, fasting and Scripture. These aren't easy but I am building them into my day (except fasting, haven't gotten there due to other food issues) and weirdly, I have more time, more presence, and more joy. Maybe not weirdly but it feels surprising to me.
Basically we (specifically I) need to continually set our minds before the Spirit and truth of God. When tempted, we stand in quiet trust in God's love and wisdom and bring our minds back to Scripture.
Truth = reality.
"As we first turned away from God in our thoughts, so it is in our thoughts that the first movements toward the renovation of the heart occur. Thoughts are the place where we can and must begin to change."
It is my responsibility to curate my thought life and to organize my mind around God's Spirit and truth. I don't have to do this alone. God has given me His Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen me.
This for me means recognizing the power of lies on my mind and the need to curate my inputs as an act of apprenticeship to Jesus. It means thinking critically about what I take into my mind- what I read or watch or listen to or consume or let entertain me. It means praying that those things will be revealed to me and that I will be able to reject them.
Everything we allow into our minds has an effect on our souls, for good or for evil. What we give our attention to will shape the persons we become. What we think about we become. You are what your mind looks at. You are what you contemplate. This is a really big deal in this time of viewing and scrolling and casually ingesting all sorts of stuff.
Challenge #2 - The Flesh: Comer defines "the flesh" as the base, primal, animalistic drives for self-gratification and our instincts for survival, domination, and the need for control. Today, it seems like "Self" is the new God.
"Righteousness is replaced by happiness, holiness for wholeness, truth by feeling, ethics by feeling good about one's self. The world shrinks to the range of personal circumstances; the community of faith shrinks to a circle of personal friends. The past recedes. The Church recedes. The world recedes. All that is left is self."
I've experienced this specifically in the realm of addictions. Food addiction and alcohol misuse had a strong hold on me at different times. Food impulses are something I still struggle with and may continue to do so for my life. Comer reminds me that our strongest desires are not our deepest desires. Those raging desires aren't coming from the bedrock layer in our souls. They are just the loudest and they can distract us from depth and growth.
He challenges us: "Come to quiet before God. What is your deepest desire? What do you really want?"
The objects of our attachments and addictions become idols. We give them our time, energy, and attention even when we don't want to and we cling, grasp and are self-absorbed. It's not freedom, it's prison.
Comer defines freedom as a strategic loss of some freedoms into order to gain others. It's not the absence of constraints, it's choosing the right constraints.
"We make our decisions, then our decisions make us. In the beginning we have a choice, but eventually, we have a character."
Everyone wants to be free but freedom isn't actually found in following our impulses. Often this ends in addiction and entrapment. Something that spoke to me was his interpretation of guilt vs shame. Guilt is about the what (what I did was bad). Shame is about the who (I am bad). Again, when we live in shame, it's a lie about who we are, what we can do, and the way we live.
So how do we beat these desires/addictions to "the flesh"?
Step one: Crucify our flesh- Put to death the practices that we are doing, not by willpower but the higher power that is the Spirit of Jesus.
How? Via the practices, prayer, solitude, silence, the word of God, and fasting.
Two practices that we see modelled by Jesus are fasting and confession.
Fasting reveals where you are in bondage. It trains our bodies to not get what they want. For me, because I have food issues, I haven't fasted from food but completely abstaining from alcohol has hugely released me from its grip. Recognizing lies in impulses and urges and choosing to turn away from them can be hard but is possible, which I never believed before. I couldn't separate what I DO from who I AM.
Addictions are rooted in shame and keep us isolated in lies and secrecy. Confession is a crucial aspect of community and relationship and that is the opposite of addiction and shame. Again, freedom means denying some freedoms to have a bigger freedom.
We either sow to the flesh and entrench our slavery to it or we sow to the Spirit and increase our capacity to live freely and joyfully with God in his world.
So for me, it means I have to evaluate everything in my life and ask:
Does this sow to my flesh or my spirit?
Does this make me more enslaved or more free?
More beastly or more human?
The law of returns means that we sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap another action. Sow some actions, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character, sow a character and reap a destiny, either in slavery to flesh or freedom in Spirit.
We feed our spirits and starve our flesh by practicing habits laid down by Jesus, fasting and confessing sin. This is hard to start doing because our whole society is based around self-love, self gratification, and self happiness. However, when we do this, it grows our willpower and opens our minds and bodies to God's Spirit and true joy. I am finding this to be 100% true.
Challenge #3: The World - "What was condemned is celebrated, what was celebrated is condemned. Those who refuse to celebrate are condemned." That's a pretty accurate description of modern day culture but if we follow Jesus, then we aren't supposed to adhere to this idea. The West as a whole has inherited from Christianity incredibly high standards for human rights but without Christ's power and presence, it's increasingly devoid of the necessary resources to achieve its moral goals. The result is a culture that can rarely live up to its own standards and with no means of atonement, and an increasing hostility toward the idea of forgiveness, once you sin (in the new morality) you're a pariah. In other words, cancel culture. This doesn't work and it doesn't bring joy, fulfilment, or change.
That doesn't mean people of the world are our enemy, they (like us) are the object of Jesus' love and we need to show them to the King or at least live in the King's ways so there is a difference in our hearts, our views, and our ways. It means that we set our eyes on Jesus and live by the Holy Spirit and God's word instead of gut reacting to what is happening on a human level.
The postmodern view sees all injustice as happening on a human level and so demonizes humans rather than recognizing evil forces (the world, the flesh, the devil) at work through all human life.
When we see that, we live differently. We live in the world but we live by Jesus' teachings, promptings of the Holy Spirit, and in community and relationships with each other in fellowship.
This area is a huge challenge to me and I am so thankful for some of the women and community that God has brought into my life this last year. I have been encouraged and challenged by family and by friends who are walking with God and walking with me in love and in fun and laughter. I dare you to ask God for this community. He'll give it to you. I promise.
Anyway, this post is just a bookmark for me to make sure that I don't forget these important teachings that have been practical and life changing personally.
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