Live No Lies by John Mark Comer

The book in three sentences:

As followers of Jesus, we are at war with the world, the flesh and the devil. The three enemies’ stratagem is as follows: We are bombarded with deceptive ideas (from the Devil) that play to our disordered desires (aka the Flesh), which are normalized in a sinful society (aka the World). We fight back by practicing the spiritual disciplines modeled by Jesus: quiet prayer, fasting, knowing the word of God, confession, living in community as part of His church. 

Big Ideas:

1. Jesus believed that the Devil was real, bent on our destruction, and used lies as his primary weapon. As followers of Jesus, the Devil can’t force us to sin, so he uses lies to get us to choose to sin, fooling us into walking down a path other than the one Jesus laid down for us, thinking it will lead to happiness. Our enemy is a good liar, and doesn’t use random lies, with no emotional value. He uses lies that play to our base, self-gratifying desires (aka our flesh). We fight the devil and his lies, just as Jesus did in the wilderness, through quiet prayer, fasting, and knowing the word of God. 
2. The Flesh is our base, primal drive for self-gratification, especially pertaining to sensuality (as in sex, and food) but also to pleasure in general, our instincts for survival and need for control. Desires that are in all of us. Most of us recognize that we have a hierarchy of desires in our minds and bodies and not all are equally beneficial. The two primary desires are represented by the Flesh and the Spirit, which are in competition for control of ourselves. Wise people recognize that pleasure is different from happiness and thus, we must self-edit this inner mix of desires. Further, in every little decision we make, we are either feeding, and thus strengthening, our Flesh or our Spirit. We fight the Flesh through fasting and confession. 
3. The World describes the cultural and social practices that are under the control of Satan and, thus, opposed to God. Unfortunately, for believers in the West, we now live in a post-Christian society, and are thus, a cognitive minority. We must be careful then, not to be assimilated into the World, and adopt her culture. Instead, we are called to be a beautiful resistance. A counter-culture that lives in the World, but is not of the World. We do this by living in community as part of a church that is: 1) deeply relational vs individualistic 2) pursuing holiness vs hedonism 3) a community of order vs chaos.

Things to implement

1. Take a regular “retreat” to spend time in quiet prayer and ask the Lord, “Show me what lies I believe, and what the truth is.” Find scripture that counters those lies and memorize it. 
2. Fast one day a week 
3. Find an accountability partner that I can share EVERYTHING with. Ask them to be consistent about asking me about my struggles and praying for me. 
4. Create a “Rule of Life”. That is, a schedule, and set of practices and relational rhythms that organize our lives around abiding in Jesus.