30-Day Challenges

 I have been utilizing some small incremental changes in my life using 30-Day Challenges.  I started my first challenge in June with the 30-day cold shower challenge.  I had a few reasons for taking this challenge, but the most significant was an aid to waking up early in the morning.  With the cold shower I would get up at about 4:30 and take my shower.  After I took my shower, I would have my daily Bible devotion.  For some strange reason it really worked.  The cold shower was extremely uncomfortable, and I had to work my way into it from starting at lukewarm, to having the last 20 seconds of the shower on full cold, to having the entire shower on cold. This only took a few days.  I do not know if I am a glutton for punishment, but the cold shower was crazy enough to cause me to get up when the alarm went off.  

Some people think that the way to get yourself to wake up earlier is to "go to bed earlier", but I have found that this simply does not work.  If you want to wake up earlier, you simply need to get up earlier regardless of what time you get to bed the night before. What happens is that the next night you will be tired enough that your body will signal "it is time to go to bed".  It is at that time that you need to go to bed and then you will be able to wake up easier the next morning.  So, in order to start this habit, you have to "eat the frog" and force yourself to get up then your body will start to adjust.  The cold shower really helped wake me up even when I felt half asleep.  The cold shower worked so well that after the 30 days I decided to keep the habit.  It is now October, and I am still getting up at about 4:30 and taking a cold shower (it is still uncomfortable).  Along with that is my Bible reading and devotions.  I have only missed two days and one was intentional and the other was due to being a guest at someone else's house.  

For July I decided to do an Intermittent Fasting Challenge.  I ate One Meal a Day (OMAD), or on some days did a 20 hour fast with a 4-hour eating window for 30-days.  I lost about 12 pounds for the month of July.  I found the fasting to be fairly easy and simple without having to count calories.  There were a lot of other benefits that I experienced as well such as more energy, less brain fog, and lower blood pressure just to name a few.  Again, this 30-day challenge worked so well that I decided to continue through the months of August and September.  As of today, I have lost 35 lbs.  

For August I went on a special prayer challenge of thirty minutes of silence on my knees for thirty days.  I did not make this challenge.  I went about 10 days and decided to quit as it is almost impossible to sit there and try to be silent by not thinking anything.  I do not see this as a failure because I learned some things through this challenge. With this challenge I have been able to come with some other ideas that I might try in the future for prayer.  

For September I went on a 100 push-ups a day challenge.   I only did these four days per week to give myself time to recover.  I did 10 sets of 10 push-ups.  This went really well as I did them throughout the day. Any time that I had free to do a set, I would do them.  What I learned from this was that I can increase my activity level by doing something during the times where there is not much going on.  I spend a lot of time working in front of a computer or reading, so it is good to take quick exercise breaks throughout the day. 

My 30-day challenge in October is a 30-Day Reach Out Challenge.  This challenge is where I contact people every day to see how they are doing.  I start out in the first week with one person a day and increase each week with another person so that by week 4 I am reaching out to 4 people a day.  A rule is that calling the same person in the same day does not count as two, but as only one.  I can contact the same person multiple times a week and it counts, but only counts as one for that day.  At this time, I do not know how easy or difficult this will be, but I know that I will learn something by the end of October.  It will probably become more challenging as I get through the list of available people.  My hope is that it will stretch me to actively look for people to care for.  

I have ideas for other months that I will share as the year unfolds, but I really like the 30-day challenge idea for several reasons.  They say it takes about 21 days to form a new habit.  Thirty days allows enough time to form a habit and clinch it with the additional days.  Thirty days allows for short-terms wins that can be celebrated.  With these wins a person can gain a bit of traction towards making small changes in their life that can bring significant benefits.             

Eternal Security: What about Judas?

“Judas is proof that a man can lose their standing with God—what about him?”

     Of all the people from the scriptures that we could point to as having lost his salvation, it would be Judas.  He was one of the 12 disciples that Jesus hand-picked.  He had a front row seat to Jesus’ ministry of healing and teaching, and he was also sent out two times to do ministry in Christ’s name.  The first time it was with the 12 and the second time was with the 70 (Luke Chapters 9 and 10).  In both cases Judas was paired with another disciple, and they were given authority to preach, to heal and to cast out demons in Jesus’ name.  If any of us had seen Judas he would have looked like a genuine follower (he, in fact was) of Christ as he worked miracles and preached the messages that Jesus instructed him.  And yet, Judas had a false faith, he was a follower but not a believer.  Notice what the scriptures say about him in John 6:70-72…

Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve?  And yet one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray Him.

            Notice also what it says a few verses earlier…in verse 64

…But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray Him.)

According to this passage Judas was an unbeliever!  Therefore, we cannot say that Judas was once a believer that lost his status as a believer, because these verses suggest that he was an unbeliever from the beginning.  Judas was among the twelve and doing the works along with the 12 and yet he was a “devil” the whole time.  His true colors finally came out, and so Judas was a disciple of Jesus and yet not a believer.