Live No Lies summary

and demons. These days, however, even many Christians are skeptical. People treat the devil as a myth or ancient nonsense. 

There’s a tendency to dismiss certain past beliefs as evidence of our ancestors’ inferior intellect. But people are no more intelligent today than they were in the past. Maybe the people who believed in the devil were right after all.

Life is a process of spiritual formation. Every moment of every day, people change and gradually become their own unique person. For Christians, the question is: How can I become more like Jesus, and not like the devil?

People become more like the devil through isolation and lies. The opposite of a lie is the truth – that is, reality. The opposite of isolation is a relationship. So through relationships and reality, people become more like Jesus.

Humans are driven by desire. All of us are filled with primal, animalistic instincts for self-gratification.

There’s nothing new or unnatural about desire – it’s a problem that goes right back to Adam and Eve. But society’s attitude toward desire has changed in the last century, leading to a lot of pain and confusion.

What goes around comes around. This is an idea shared by many people, regardless of religious belief – though it appears in the Bible too. Jesus made reference to it, and Paul explained the idea using a farming metaphor: a man reaps what he sows.

This concept is also known as the law of returns. It’s a simple but profound idea with two parts. First, every cause has an effect. And second, the effect may be disproportionate to the cause.

The process of becoming a good Christian is a kind of practice or exercise. Through adopting positive habits, a Christian can build the strength of their spirit – essentially their willpower muscle. The stronger a person’s willpower, the easier it is to overcome their primitive desires.

But sometimes, willpower alone is not enough. People have to battle with their desires for self-gratification on a daily basis. In the Bible, Paul says that Christians have to “crucify” the flesh and its desires.

The world is a dangerous place. Christians are threatened not just by the devil’s lies and their own desires, but also by the world itself. 

Again, like the desire problem, this issue is nothing new. There are plenty of warnings in the Bible about the dangers of the world. For Jesus, the world was a hostile place, full of temptation and ruled by the devil. The author defines the world as a culture corrupted by rebelling against God.

The West has become a post-Christian culture. Society still retains the scaffolding of Christian morality. But it’s attempting to move beyond Christianity and reject commitments and restraints. The West is like a rebellious teenager who fights his parents’ authority while still living at home and eating their food.

As we’ve seen, Christians living in a post-Christian society have to navigate a world where immoral ideas, desires, and behavior are normalized.