Listen to William Lewis introduce the 30 Days of Faith challenge in this short message:
The Challenge
First of all I want to congratulate you and thank you for giving this challenge a try. I would like to congratulate you because I truly believe that this can be a life changing challenge and I know how hard it can be to try something new out. I thank you for being willing to put aside any doubts you may have - at least enough to sit down and read through one of the Gospels.
What is the challenge?
The 30 Days of Faith Challenge is actually broken down into two parts - one for those who do not follow Christianity, and one for those who do.
First, let me preface this by saying that when I refer to a “non-believer” I am speaking to atheist, skeptics, agnostics, humanist, deist, as well as to those who follow faith systems other than Christianity - whether it be Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, or any other world religion. If the above describes you and you have made your way here I hope that you might have at least an inkling of faith that “this Christian thing” - as I once put it to my brother - might have something to it. Whether you have never believed in a higher power but are now reconsidering that stance or you simply feel that there might be something you are missing in your current religious practice I hope that you will find answers to some of your questions over the next 30 days.
With that said, The Challenge is actually broken down into two parts - one for the non-believer and one for the believer.
For the Non Believer:
Be willing to believe that the Gospels might be true and, therefore, to commit to reading one of the four Gospels over the next 30 days with that small bit of faith.
Pray at least once a day. It doesn’t need to be a fancy prayer, in fact it can be as simple as “God help me” and do this with the same small bit of faith as above that God might be listening and willing to answer.
Speak with a believer you trust at the end of this challenge about any questions you have. We recommend that this person be a “mature Christian” but they don’t need to be a Pastor or other leader in the Church. By “mature Christian” we simply mean someone who has a solid faith and understanding of the Bible. We highly recommend that you use the Gospel of John devotional to journal as you go through this challenge so that you will remember any questions you may have. Finally, if a friend or family member led you to this challenge because they are a believer our challenge to them is to go through it with you as we believe this will only lead to their own growth and also open doors to even better conversations.
For the Believer:
If you are a believer then The faith challenge has two important rules and a challenge for you as well.
The first rule is that this is not your opportunity to try and full court press someone into believing in God or converting to Christianity. The reality is that many will go through this challenge and continue to have questions and/or simply not be ready to make a decision for Christ. It is important that we remember Ephesians 2:4-9
“But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast. (Ephesians 2:4-9 WEB)
This verse reminds us that it is by grace that we are all saved as a gift from God. It is, therefore, not possible for any of us to convince someone else to be saved - only the Holy Spirit can do that. Your job instead is to do what all Christians are called to do. Share the Gospel, share your own testimony, and answer any questions that they may have.
The second rule is of vital importance - this is NOT your opportunity to call out the sin of the person who approaches you or to condemn them for things that they may be doing now or have done in the past. John 16 tells us:
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away, the Counselor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; 9 about sin, because they don’t believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more; 11 about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged.” (John 16:7-11 WEB)
Jesus is speaking here about his impending death and makes very clear that only the Counselor - the Holy Spirit - may convict us of sin. As a Christian people may come to you - as part of this challenge or not - with questions about God, Jesus, and what it means to be Christian. We want to be honest about what we see as sin but we want to do it from a place of love and grace - not condemnation. What I mean by this is that if you know someone is, as an example, living in adultery it is not your place to call them out on this and tell them that they cannot make it into heaven as an adulterer. If they ask you about this you can, however, gently remind them that the Scripture tells us that adultery is a sin and recommend that as they come into a relationship with Christ that they approach God with that part of their life and ask God to help them deal with it. Trust me, God is more than capable of helping someone deal with their sin as you spread his message of love and grace.
The Challenge for the Believer:
The challenge for you is to make sure that you are ready to have a conversation about the Gospels if someone approaches you. To do this I am challenging you to go a step further than a non-believer doing the The Faith Challenge and turn it into a 120 day challenge rather than a 30 day one. Go through each one of the Gospels 30 days at a time for the next 4 months. This will not only give you the ability to discuss this in detail with anyone who might approach you but will, more importantly, bring you into a closer relationship with Jesus.
The second challenge for you is more of a question - are you ready to walk someone through salvation if they ask? Many Christians might respond to this by saying they are not a pastor. My response is simple - it doesn’t matter. Roman’s 10:9-10 reads:
“. . . if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart, one believes resulting in righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made resulting in salvation.”
If you read that Scripture closely you will see that it does not include the word pastor anywhere, let alone state that someone must be guided through salvation by a pastor. We all have the ability to guide someone through this important decision and so I challenge you to prepare yourself to do so. You can find some tools in our resources section to help you with this.