40acts: Ready to ActSample

Act 1: Ready to Act

Welcome to the 40acts challenge! Are you ready to spend Lent on behalf of others? Having a verse in mind will help keep you focussed, especially if your enthusiasm threatens to dip. Let’s surprise people with God’s goodness this Lent!

Many of us start 40acts because deep down we want to become generous people. We earnestly want to live better lives, to live as better people, to live well. The wonderful thing is that the Bible comes pre-loaded with a book tailor-made for exactly that sort of person: Proverbs.

Here’s an insight from Proverbs that should come as a relief: we don’t have to be particularly clever to live well. Right at the start of the book the truth is laid out: ‘For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding’ (2:6). What we learn from the book of Proverbs is that living well doesn’t come from reading books, storing up knowledge, or hoarding life hacks (as helpful as all of that can be). 

What this verse tells us it that living well simply comes from receiving all the good things that God has for us. It is totally and completely about an organic relationship with God. When we connect our lives with God, he gives us all we need to live well, to become generous people. So at the start of 40 days of doing, before we launch out of our comfort zones, sit back and know that it all comes from simply being, and simply receiving all that God has for you.