THE CHURCH, AS LOVELY AS WE ARE, SHOULD NOT REPLACE PERSONAL DEVOTION
Why your relationship with God should be 24/7.
We all love Faith Church.
We love the community, we enjoy the friendships, we bask in the glory of God’s presence and blessings every time we meet, and our lives have been utterly changed since we started our journey here. The worship, the word, and the warmth of community we share with several beautiful people has brightened up our lives in deep ways. Yet over time—through seasons of growth, loss, joy, and pain—we must come to understand that a lifestyle of personal devotion to God will always be greater than church assembly.
Consider Jesus Christ our Lord, as much as he loved the fellowship of his disciples, and his heart held strong compassion for the people, he always, always withdrew himself to a quiet place just to spend time with His Heavenly Father. In the Book of Luke alone, there are nine instances where Christ went to the mountains to spend time with God.
If Christ prioritizes personal devotion over gathering at the Mount of Olives, it is without doubt that we must also do the same as Christ-like believers.
Think back for a bit and meditate on the past. There were seasons when you were present in church every week, faithful in attendance, alive during worship, attentive during sermons—yet inwardly, you felt empty and bereft of any spiritual substance.
By God’s mercy, during our Sunday Services and Friday vigils, our hearts and hands are raised to the Heavens, we weep as we pour out our souls to God, and we feel such deep closeness to God. However, without the fire of personal devotion to sustain this connection God, many times, when Monday comes, what happens? Our spirit feels underfed, our minds grow weak, our soul is weary again, and we ask ourselves, where is the divine connection we felt just a few days at the height of the church service?
The answer is simple: we have depended on the borrowed fire of the community instead of building our own altar. Rather than ignite our own fire, we have decided to sit around the campfire ignited by others and receive warmth through the heat shared by the group. What happens when we leave the camp and head back to our homes? Which fire will sustain us then? And is the fire we start by ourselves and hold personally not going to give far greater warmth than the shared embers?
Personal devotion is intimate, and because it requires greater sacrifice, it naturally produces greater rewards. In the church service, God speaks to us. In devotion, God speaks to you. It is in devotion that God corrects you directly, comforts you deeply, and reveals parts of Himself you would miss in a crowd.
David understood this deeply. Many of the Psalms were not written on a stage or in a congregation but in caves, fields, and lonely places. Psalm 63 begins with, “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You.” This was not the language of someone sitting in the temple, but the cry of a man alone with God.
And you know what? Personal time with God enhances the moments spent in church. When your devotion life is strong, church becomes richer, the messages gets stronger, prayer and worship flows deeper, and the Holy Spirit breaks and builds you easily. But when your devotion life is weak, church feels like tilling of a new stony ground rather than a harvest.
In Matthew 6:6, Jesus says, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” The private place of divine connection with God is not optional; it is foundational. What happens in public is meant to overflow from what has already been established in private.
Believers who neglect private devotion often struggle with consistency because, while church services inspire obedience, intimacy is built in personal devotion. It is in devotion that scripture stops being ink on paper and becomes a mirror. It is there that the Holy Spirit highlights attitudes, motives, and habits no sermon could ever address directly. It is there that tears fall freely, prayers are brutally honest, and God becomes a companion.
Church has its own role, and we have written extensively about the benefit of a special vibrant church like ours in this post. Scripture commands us not to forsake the assembly of fellow believers (Hebrews 10:25). The church, however, is meant to be a meeting of flames, not a place where cold hearts come to borrow warmth. When personal devotion is absent, church starts to feel like a chore.
So, do you want your relationship with God to be more than a 1/7 experience rather than a complete 7/7? Improve the time, frequency and worth of the time you spend with God EVERY DAY.
Scripture tells us in Mark 1:35 that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.”
If Jesus needed personal devotion, how much more do I?