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Welcome to the True40 Compassion Challenge! 

Join us on this journey through Lent as we explore God’s heart for true fasting and align our hearts with His. Lent, the period of time from Ash Wednesday (February 18) to Easter (April 5), is often a time when people “give up” something - chocolate, coffee, meat, social media, etc. - much in the same way that the ancient peoples of Israel gave up eating for periods of time to prepare their hearts for worship, focus on God, or gain His favor. However, in Isaiah 58, God overturns their ideas about fasting, declaring that their sacrifices of hunger are not what He desires. In fact, He chastises them for being consumed with their own self-righteousness and for not having the right heart attitude in their sacrifice. True fasting, He tells them, is not so much what you DON’T do - but what you DO do in service of others, especially the vulnerable. He wants us to partner with Him in bringing about justice and in righting the wrongs that are so prevalent in our world. But Isaiah 58 is not the only place where He makes this point! Join with us as we journey through both the Old and New Testaments over these next 8 weeks to hear more about how God wants us to dive into True Fasting. Let the weekly devotionals challenge your thoughts about doing justice. Then use the daily compassion challenges to move further out of your comfort zone into greater engagement with our broken world. Some of the challenges are quick and easy, and some take greater intentionality and more time. Don’t try to do them all, but choose a few, and engage them with all your heart. We are His ambassadors in this world, and His Kingdom is about justice and compassion.