YF retreat: Spiritual fitness

I'm starting to blog less and less because I'm so busy >_<" 

I can't believe it's almost midway through October!

This year I was on the committee for organizing the YF retreat. 

We stayed at Mornington in this luxury house. The views were amazing!!
Disclaimer: these are not my photos.





The retreat was over the weekend and it was the first time I led a group. Our speaker was Dr Dallas, who is such a gentleman. So much respect for this old preacher!

During group discussion I asked him about his youth days, and he said that he grew up without TV in Australia. In those days boys respected girls and there was hardly any sexual objectification of women and everyone had clean fun. I was quite struck by the differences, and yeah, what a different world we live in now. The pop music industry is particularly disgusting in terms of portraying highly sexual music videos and corrupting the minds of youths.

Indeed this passage is so true today:
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." 2 Tim 3:1-4. 

It can be argued that people have always been this way, but I really think our generation is so obsessed with themselves and lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. 

The world is "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."2 Tim 3:7

Anyway our theme was SPIRITUAL FITNESS and was based on the book of Ephesians. 

We had 4 messages which I will quickly dot point what I learnt:

1. CHOICE
- Spend more time at the start of prayer adoring God

- Choose to build up the name of God with our lives

- God didn't make us because He was lonely. The trinity is self-sufficient, but God created us to be loved by Him.

2. CHANGE- What if you've never felt convicted? It's not about how, but where you are now with God. Your conviction doesn't have to be amazing, but it can be a calm realization - the peace of God

- Nice reminder of that are His workmanship, created for good works.

3. CHALLENGE
- This action of WALKING with Christ is very significant and some bible translations write LIVE, which doesn't describe it as well. Walking in Christ is a step by step process.
- Walk lovingly and circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.

- Keep the unity of the church, we all have one body, one spirit, one lord, one baptism, one hope, one faith. 

- The end goal is spiritual maturity, to move from milk to meat and exercise our faith

- Walk differently, don't be ashamed of living different from the world

- When people think of your life: are you consistent? are you trustworthy? is there any fault in you?

- True love is a matter of will, not just emotional or physical show of love!

- The world has romanticized marriage and love, but it's agape love. 

- A man and a woman in marriage are opposite and complimentary, not equal. We have different roles, the men are to lead and the women submit, but the men must sacrifice and love his wife like his own flesh.

4. CHARGE
- We fight a spiritual war against evil. It is very real and very close at all times. 

- We must guard our weaknesses, but ALSO OUR STRENGTHS as Satan can attack us both ways. Don't let your strengths turn into pride

- Satan convinces people that he is not even real. Scary thought but so true. 

- It's easy to do nothing, but that's not good enough. At the end of the day we must stand for God. Those who honour God, God will honour in return. 

- Don't let Satan distract you from praying, above all we are to pray always
- To pray without ceasing comes when our minds naturally gravitate to wards Gods and our thoughts turn into prayers for others. 

- Keep your prayer life fresh, pray in different places, positions and times. Go for a walk and pray.  

 My mum cooked for all of us the entire weekend, which was fantabulous. 

On the first day we had some free time and went to the beach :)

We played some touch rugby too!

On Sunday we had a worship service in the house, then went out to Point Nepean for games.

Zack and I ran to the point and back which was ~6km. I was completely exhausted on the way home and took 3 days to recover.  It wasn't just about spiritual fitness, but also physical fitness this week. 

That night we had skits/ improv which was hilarrrriiouuusss!
We all had to bring one random item for props and I brought a back scratcher.
My group had really good team work, and we kind of made it into a musical :P

I've probably missed a few details, but overall it was a fantastic weekend!! I had so much fun with everyone and created great memories :)
Here's one of the breakfast times, Zack's seduction face is a killer.

Planning the retreat was exhausting, but it was so worth it in the end :D
In other news, our youth had a onesie party/ farewell to Keene. 

GOOD TIMES :)