An “Altared” Life

An altar is a place of encounters…Encounters with the King of Glory. <Tweet This

Altars in the Old Testament were places of:

Sacrifice

Fellowship & Communion with God

Memorial

Life-changing Encounters

As I nose-dived into studying the Old Testament altars, I found sometimes the builders were prompted to build one by God, while sometimes the building was a purely spontaneous act.

Examples of spontaneous altar-building include Noah and Abraham.  As soon as Noah got the ark unloaded – boom – he built an altar “to the LORD” and offered up every kind of clean animal as a burnt offering. Abraham built an altar after God appeared to him in Shechem and promised him the land of Canaan (Genesis 12). Later, he built another altar at Bethel and “called upon the name of the LORD”.

I just find myself asking “How did they know to build an altar?” What was welling up in them so deeply that the only appropriate expression was to use an elevated piece of earth to communicate with God?

God hard-wired us for worship. Romans 1:19-20 tells us God is evident through nature and we are to respond appropriately in worship of the Creator. I think maybe Noah and Abraham were experiencing such a magnificent revelation of God, words weren’t quite enough to express what they were feeling.

Can you identify with Noah and Abraham? When our spirit is pegging out the thankfulness-meter or when we desperately want to have a heart to heart with our Father in Heaven, words may fail us. We want to DO something.

 Sometimes we want to be so close and so intimate with Him, we strive to reach Him through a piece of elevated ground. It is a place we can touch and know – this is where I had an encounter with El Elyon, the God Most High. This is where I poured out my heart of thankfulness. This is where I bowed my face low to the ground and desperately sought for answers.

 Maybe the elevated ground of an Old Testament altar was an attempt to reach up to an unfathomably high God. But no matter how high we go, God will always have to come down to meet us. And He does…graciously, mercifully, faithfully…come to down to meet us on our altars.

Of this I am sure – people always left altars changed beings. Changed because they had offered worship, asked forgiveness, or communed with God. This is my desire – to be a changed woman fresh off the altar of sacrifice each and everyday. It is my reasonable service (Romans 12:1).