40 day challenge text challenge

Last year we put together a challenge for people to sign up to on their mobile phones. It was part of our Chocolate Sunday theme it was really quite successful so we've got it running again. check it out on the Sanctuary First web site. Chocolate Sunday is all about debunking the idea that we should give our little pleasures up during Lent. I really think Lent is about a greater challenge. It is an inviatation to pick up the cross and follow Jesus. It is a challenge not to deny yourself chocolate but to deny yourself. I was reading an article in the Guardian newspaper today which was focusing on the ethical dimension that needs to enter into politics. Nick Clegg the leader of the Lib Dems outlined his philosophy of human nature. He said he started from the premise that human beings are by nature good. The drive of his arguement was that if we can get the right economic policies in place and promote a society of "fairness" then things will get better. I thought to myself, Nick your following the old Liberal deception. All men and woman are by nature good. the truth is that all men and women left to their own devices will seek to do what suits them best not what suits the wider community best. We are all by nature sinners. There is hardly an action we carry out that doesn't have the potential to be twisted for our own advantage. Take for instance the things we do or do not do at Lent. The fact is that t many of us give up chocolate or give up this and that during Lent and we feel smug when we've finished. Its almost as though we pat ourselves on the back and tell people how proud we are of our self control. Its so strange we say we've given these things up for lent and all the time we've givn up following Jesus. The chocolate thing is more about our image and the Lent idea is more about an opportunity to engage in a slimmimg programme. You know deep down that you really need to lose some weight. Lent then becomes an excuse to allow you to do something that you've wanted to do because you want to improve your self image. The real meaning of lent goes beyond the chocolate. it invites you to journey with Jesus to the place of obdedience to the place where you say " Father not my will but your will be done." So i guess the 40 Day Challenge is a call to pick up the cross and in doing so change your world.

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Posted By: Helmut   On: 3 Mar 2010   At: 10:57am

But then “giving up the little pleasures” might just be the first step on the road to Christ - I am saying this after several lent seasons. And even the “residual effects” (e.g., not really staying teatotal, but being much more aware) might just nudge you the right way. If you bother about lent at all (and that is quite some step to begin with), carrying on along the road to Christ is not altogether unlikely.

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