In the Bible, the prophet Elijah confronts a woman who doesn’t believe in God. He doesn’t ask her to accept God or to believe in God. (See 1 Kings 17.) Instead, he gives her hopeless heart a challenging hope-filled word from God and asks her to go and obey it. Elijah is so filled with the Spirit of God that the woman is inspired to go and do the word of the living God, even though she doesn’t believe in Him and the results are miraculous. Perhaps instead (or in addition to) asking people to “accept Christ” we could give them a Word from Christ and ask them to go and obey it.

I was the Chaplain in an 86-bed alcohol and drug rehab center for 5 years. The Spirit prompted me to challenge every new man to read the New Testament for at least 5 minutes a day for 21 days. Most agreed to do it. Many began but quit in a day or two. A few stayed with it for 21 days and every time their hopeless was turned into hope and the Bible came alive for them.

One man told me that he was an atheist and would read exactly 5 minutes a day for exactly 21 days and prove to me that the process won’t do anything for him. He frequently came by my office telling me that nothing was happening and on the 20th night he was gloating about proving me wrong. I reminded him that he had one more time to read. Then I prayed for him frequently the next 24 hours. When I came into work the next afternoon, he met me at the door, thrilled about God. He told me that He had read and obeyed a Bible verse that morning and God had filled his heart. From that point on he read the Bible everyday with passion. He finished the program still excited about Jesus.