Spiritual retreat – Part 4

Spiritual retreat is a place of worship. Worship is a time set aside to deepen your relationship with God. Like any relationship you desire to strengthen, your relationship with God requires an investment of time. This does not just occur; it only happens on purpose. Worship is active, not passive.

To worship does not necessarily mean to sit still and be quiet, although it might. Worship should be a time of active engagement between you and God. That may mean praying out loud, praying silently, reading the Bible or whatever you determine helps you connect with God.

According to Warren Wiersbe: “Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are —mind, emotions, will, body — to what God is and says and does.” Worship is a beautiful relationship between us and God. Worship is personal.

According to William Temple: “Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration.” Our relationship with God cannot be dictated or defined by anyone else; it will flow out of our heart’s desire to spend time with our Heavenly Father. Learning to be personal in your worship is critical and will help with your corporate worship.

Spiritual retreat equips a serious seeker of God to find God in daily life. Retreat is about meditating on God. A time of worship is not about us, but a time to focus on God. The whole point behind taking personal retreats is to have time to renew and become more alive in God. That doesn’t tend to happen without some time away. When you are on a retreat, you have a much better shot at being still and knowing God (Ps. 46:10) on deeper levels, and experiencing the peace, perspective and renewal that comes from an extended time with Him. Taking a concentrated time that is solely devoted to connecting with God, and to deepening our sense of identity in Him, is vitally to our spiritual growth and maturity.

Part of the purpose of the Personal Spiritual Retreat is so you can experience forgiveness, correction, comfort, healing or direction. Each time you may need something different, which makes these retreats even more vital.

The entire ministry of Jesus began with a retreat of sorts. Right after his baptism we are told in Luke 4:1-2 that: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.” The larger point of a retreat is to rest and renew in the Lord. Therefore, it is not about following a strict agenda! You can begin retreat with a time of prayer; spend time in the word; consider reading some spiritual books and consider writing on what you learned from your time in the word or other reading. At the end of the day, I encourage you to write out your big takeaways and any commitments you may have made to the Lord, so you can review those at a later date. Getting away for a day or more is vital to a vibrant, deepening relationship with God.

•Today’s nugget: Retreat is vital to a vibrant relationship with God
Prayer: Lord help me to develop the hunger to seek you. Prayer lines: 08033299824.E-mail: [email protected]. Rev. Abel UkachiAmadi, General Superintendent, Assemblies of God, Nigeria