SKIT WITH A MESSAGE
During my college days, a fellow student and I did a live skit (we acted it out as if it was a real event) in the dining room one day. He and I entered into a heated argument about the importance of personal time with God.
The other person argued that all of the time we spent in corporate devotional time was sufficient and he did not need to worry about spending personal time in reading, praying and meditating. After all, he argued, we started the day with group devotions in our dorms (men's and women's dorms), we then had corporate prayer at breakfast, we started each class with prayer (sometimes a Bible reading, which occasionally turned into an entire class time of worship), we had chapel services everyday before lunch, we prayed corporately over our lunch and supper, we all attended midweek services somewhere and we all attended Sunday services (Sunday School, AM and PM preaching), and sometimes we were involved in outreach ministries (street work, revivals, youth retreats, music ministry).
I argued that none of those activities, nor all of those activities together were substitutes for personal time with God. I teach and preach that there are some things we get from God in corporate and public meetings, and some things we get from God, only in private, personal time with Him.
If all of those times spent in corporate devotions and worship were not sufficient during my college days, how much more do we need meaningful personal time with God since we spend such a very limited corporate time in devotion and worship today.
Point #1
The QUANTITY of time spent in worship, study, praise, church, fellowship and family devotional time is not important if it is not also QUALITY time.
We must invest ourselves in the services we attend.
We must enter into true communion with God and with one another.
We must listen to the Holy Spirit, as He speaks through the lessons, the prayers, the songs, the testimonies, the preaching, the praise.
We must worship God in spirit and in truth.
We must allow God to speak to us, to break us, to mold us, to transform us.
We must see ourselves as part of the body, not apart from the body.
We must love our brothers and sisters as we love ourselves.
Point #2
No matter how much corporate time we spend (which is probably very little anyway), we all need to be alone with God. We all need to spend that private time, seeking God, submitting to God. We need to worship, pray, meditate, wait, listen, praise. Then we need to go out in the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to live out what God works into our inner man.
REMEMBER, there are some things God only gives us as we meet together in spiritual unity with others, and there are some things God only gives us when we spend private, personal time with Him.
