This book is broken down into three sections that John Mark argues are the three primary enemies of the soul: the Devil, the flesh, and the world. Each section talks about ways that particular enemy lies to us and convinces us that we're either not measuring up, or unworthy of love, or should embrace toxic and ultimately destructive ideals like materialism, hedonism, the accumulation power, demonization of others, etc.

There were times when I felt like the book veered a little too far into "look at all the examples and pop culture references and philosophical thinkers I'm aware of and can cram into this book!" territory, which made it a little tedious to read in some places, but it remained a really thought-provoking and challenging book (in a good way). It really put practices like fasting and confession into a new perspective for me, and got me really thinking deeply about some of the lies that I've come to live/believe and what to do about them. I thought the book also did a great job of talking about concepts like Satan and sins of the flesh and the temptations of the world in a respectful, well-reasoned way; it's easy for those kinds of topics to get overly cheesy or preachy, and John Mark did a good job of discussing them openly and honestly.

I thought this was going to be a one-and-done book where I would take away a handful of useful insights and then move onto the next thing. But like his last book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, I think it might actually be a text I find myself returning to over the years, to refresh my perspective on the idea of lies, sin, and finding peace through spiritual practices rather than the things offered by the world, the flesh, and the Devil. It's a book that would likely to be transformative for a large number of Christians... but also something that will probably not be widely accepted by a large number of Christians because they'd probably accuse the author of being too liberal, or having a "woke" agenda, or whatever. There's also quite a few, I'd wager, who will hate the book because it hits really close to home in calling out ways in which many Christians are themselves falling victim to lies and sin. But, truly, for anyone interested in thoughtful contemplation on the topic, this is a really interesting book.

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Created Mar 14, 2024 at 6:51pm • Submit your own review...