Spiritual Retreat

This past weekend, we had a spiritual retreat here on the ship, where our chaplaincy department organized many activities that helped encourage and rejuvinate the crew spiritually. The theme of the weekend was "To touch God and be touched by Him" and we focused on the Tabernacle. A tour was organized through the ship, that was set up to represent the different parts of the tabernacle and scripture verses were posted throughout the course. There were stations that represented the bronze alter, the bronze laver, the table of shewbread, the golden lampstand, the golden alter and the ark of the covenent.

"The ark of the covenent"  was set up in the chapel

Friday night there was a "Sabbath" dinner to set the stage of the weekend; Saturday, there were activities throughout the day and a worship service at night; and Sunday, there were more activities in the day and our normal Sunday evening service at night where we reflected and shared our experiences of the weekend and had a worship service. It was a great weekend of reflection. I was working both Saturday and Sunday during the day but the evenings were just what I needed.
Because of how busy and caught up I found myself in work and other activities, I found that I was feeling dry spiritually. I was having my devotions and spending time with God, but it was just something I was doing and I wasn't feeling the response of the Holy Spirit in me to the things of the Lord. This weekend, by focusing on the work of Christ on the cross and all that that work enables us as believers to do, in comparison to the children of Israel and the tabernacle, I have a renewed love and passion for Christ and a new drive for His work. We no longer have to offer sacrifices for our sins, nor do we need a priest to go before God on our behalf. Because of Christ's work, we now have free access to the Father; there is no veil separating us from His presence, as there was in the tabernacle separating the people from Holy of Holies and the ark of the covenant. We can boldly come before the throne of grace and can speak directly to God who loves us so much and desires us to have relationships with Him, so much so that He sent his only Son to die on our behalf. Just like a sacrifice of blood was required as a payment for sin in the tabernacle, blood had to be shed for the penalty of our sin to be paid and so we could stand before a righteous God. God showed us His love by sending His Son to be that sacrifice. How wonderful!!!

For God demonstrates His own love to us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Jesus Christ...through whom also we have access by faith into this grace... Romans 5:2