De-Influencing The Attractive Spiritual Makeover: The Virtual Jesus Challenge
Key Takeaways:
-
You do not need a perfect routine or spiritual makeover to grow closer to Jesus.
-
A healthy spiritual life centers around your personal relationship with Jesus, not perfection, aesthetics, or accomplishments.
-
Your time with God can and will look different from someone else’s. Find ways to connect with Him that work for your personality and season of life.
-
Simplicity can be extremely powerful when repeated consistently.
-
You may not immediately see or feel spiritual growth, but God is always working.
-
The goal is to know Jesus better, not become the “perfect Christian” you see on social media.
-
The virtual Jesus challenge offers a simple, sustainable way to make intentional space for Jesus in your daily life.
It’s no secret that many of us love a good reset. :)
📅 New month = new planner
🥕 Monday = new diet (again 😂)
🍁 September = brand new schedule
⏰ January = THIS is the year I’m finally going to be a morning person who works out!
And we do the same thing with our spiritual lives.
We see the woman on Instagram who wakes up before sunrise (why does she never seem tired?!), lights a fancy candle, pours coffee in her perfectly clean kitchen, sits in an expensive, cozy chair, and peacefully reads her Bible on a beautiful spring morning the birds sing and golden sunrise pours over her stress-free flower farm. 🌟
And we’re like… Oh, YES. THAT’S what the best time spent with Jesus looks like!
"I need that.”
Then we completely reinvent our time with God. Setting 5 a.m. alarms, starting a heavy reading plan, journaling for 30 minutes, memorizing Scripture, praying for everyone we’ve met, and reading a devotional on the side. You know, just a casual Tuesday morning. 😆
Please understand: I’m not knocking the flower-farm woman. That is truly amazing and SO beautiful. If that rhythm helps her know and love the heart of Jesus, I fully support and celebrate that with her!
But I DO want to warn you:
👉 Don’t let someone else’s perfected social media version of meeting with Jesus convince you your ordinary way isn’t enough to meet with God. 👈
Social media can easily make you feel like our time with God should look a certain way. And desiring closeness with God, we make that picture our standard.
But life is messy and hard, and most of us fail at keeping up with that perfect picture. 😩
So we conclude, “I’m no good at this” and give up on the whole thing, falling into the all-or-nothing trap. “If I can’t do the whole routine perfectly, what’s the point?”
Friend, it’s time to redefine this spiritual makeover. The point is to BE WITH JESUS, no matter how sweaty, hard-fought, or un-aesthetic that might be. 👇
Let’s De-Influence the Spiritual Makeover
What does a healthy spiritual life look like? It’s actually much simpler than we usually make it. 😅
At its core, the answer is relationship.
Not perfection. Not aesthetics. Not volume.
Relationship.
So instead of wondering if you’re doing “enough” or doing it “right,” ask yourself:
-
Do I intentionally spend time in God’s Word?
-
Do I speak to Him honestly?
-
Do I seek Him for direction and wisdom?
-
Do I make space for Him in my actual, ordinary life?
-
Am I trying my best to obey and trust Him?
Notice what ISN’T on that list:
❌ The length of your quiet time
❌ How many chapters you read
❌ If you woke up on time
❌ If you journaled
❌ If you had the right atmosphere
Now, those things are NOT bad. But they are NOT the measure of a healthy, growing relationship with Jesus.
Your time with God might happen at 5 a.m. in a cozy chair with a candle and cup of coffee.
🚗 Or it might happen at 6:42 p.m. in the driver’s seat of your car.
🥪 On your lunch break, surrounded by pigeon poo.
🚶 On a sweaty walk around your neighborhood in yesterday’s unwashed workout clothes.
🛏️ Or sitting on the edge of your bed after a long, hard day when all you want to do is scroll.
None of these moments produce more “spiritual results” than the others. Jesus is the ONLY thing that matters, even when your surroundings are decidedly not social media-worthy.
You just need to show up as you are. 🫶 He loves the real you.
Stop Trying to Turn Yourself Into a Different Person
Ok, so if you don’t need the social media routine, what DOES work?
God made YOU, and He likes the person He made. And your way of connecting with God will most likely look very different than another person’s.
I’ll use myself as an example. 😅 (Forty Forty copywriter Melanie here.)
The idea of a “daily routine” zaps all the energy right out of me. 😂 I have TRIED to make routines work for me, let me tell you.
I made all the plans (many, MANY times), added fun motivators to incentivize myself, and hung it up on the fridge and mirror in front of my face. I’ve made countless variations over the years, hoping the routine would help me.
But at the end of the day, I simply don’t operate best within rigid, long-term routines. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to grow in this area, but God made me a free-flowing soul that craves novelty and purpose.
Once I stopped trying to force myself into a specific routine because that’s “the only way to meet with God,” I finally started looking forward to spending time with Him. Now I walk in new locations, bring my Bible along to coffee shops, go on worship drives, journal at the lake, take short breaks from work to talk to Him.
God never asked me to copy the perfect devotional routine I see shared on social media. He’s inviting me to know Him. To sit at His feet and BE. Just myself! 🤲
🚨 Routines are not the Savior. Jesus is.
What Helps YOU Connect With God?
You’re a totally unique person.
-
Maybe you’re not a morning person. 🥱 And no amount of alarms or planners will turn you into one.
-
Maybe you need movement to settle your brain before you even CAN focus.
-
Maybe you best speak with God when you do something with your hands.
-
Maybe you love praying out loud. Or you focus better when you journal. 📝 Or you absolutely hate journaling.
-
Maybe you need accountability to show up consistently.
-
Maybe you need to leave the house to stop noticing all the unfinished things waiting for you at home.
-
Maybe you love a beautifully organized journal and color-coded pens. 🎨
-
Maybe the thought of color-coding makes you want to leave the room.
-
Maybe you love having a physical Bible in your hands. Or you like listening to Scripture when you drive.
I encourage you to explore the ways that help YOU consistently get into God’s Word and make space for Him every day. Don’t try to copy someone else’s way of meeting with Jesus. That can leave you feeling like a failure at something God never asked you to do.
God wants YOU. With all your quirks. The real you, the distracted you, the energetic you. The you that loves routines or the you that would rather eat a shoe than live by routine. 😂
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever stretch out of your comfort zone and work on your weaknesses. But don’t hang your entire relationship with God on what you see others doing. Find the systems that help YOU consistently enter His presence. 🧎
Do Not Underestimate the Power of Simplicity
As you think about your own rhythms of spending time with Jesus, do not believe the lie that simplicity equals insignificance. 🙅
Look at what happens when you repeat small things.
-
One mile – that’s not a long distance.
-
One passage of Scripture – doesn’t sound like a massive spiritual transformation.
-
One decision to show up one day – not that astounding.
But…
-
One mile x 40 days
-
One passage x 40 days
-
Showing up one day x 40 days
THAT is so much bigger! 🤯
Your habit can be mind-numbingly simple, but as you consistently show up to spend time with God in His Word, you can trust that He’s working, even if you can’t see it yet.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
ONE degree at a time. You can’t usually see a degree of changing happening in real time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. 📈
God Moves in the Unglamorous
Those mornings that your walk feels like a waste of time or you feel like you’re praying to a brick wall, they are NOT wasted. 🫶 God’s doing important, necessary work in those not pretty moments.
Remember the parable Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 13:31-32:
“‘The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plans and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’”
A seed does not look the same as a tree. For a while it looks like… dirt. Boring old dirt. But it’s not sitting there idly, wasting your time and focus. 🌱
In the same way, you may not see the fruit of your time with Jesus from one moment to another. You might not feel different yet. You might wonder if those 20 minutes in God’s Word even do anything.
KEEP GOING.
God is always working, even when it’s still underground and you can’t see the results yet. 🌾
The Virtual Jesus Challenge: You Don’t Need a Spiritual Makeover
Friend, you can let go of that idealized 15-step spiritual routine now. 😂
You don’t need to chase that image of the woman with the flower farm and sunrise perfection.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire life. ❌
I encourage you to just make room for Jesus in your real, honest life. The way YOU love connecting with Him.
The goal was never to recreate someone else’s relationship with Jesus. The goal is Jesus Himself. 👆
More of HIM.
More time in His Word.
More opportunities to sit at His feet, listen, learn, and simply be with Him.
Honestly, we make it WAY too complicated. 🥹
If you need an easy place to start, I invite you to join the Forty Forty Challenge.
For 40 days, we walk or run one mile a day while reading (or listening to) a pre-assigned passage of Scripture. It’s simple and sustainable, even if your life is really full.
If you’d like to make more room for Jesus in your daily life, claim your spot in our next Jesus challenge below. I’ll see you there! 😍