Altars appear throughout the Bible in many different forms. They are:
A place of encounter – The Lord met Jacob in a crisis and the next day he built an altar at that place (Genesis 28).
A place of forgiveness – The brazen altar of the tabernacle sacrifice was offered as an advance testimony that there would be a once-for-all sacrifice in God’s Son.
A place of worship – The most common altar built by people to acknowledge their praise to God was the altar of incense, the holy place where priests would offer worshipto the Lord on behalf of the people and themselves.
A place of covenant – An altar was built where the covenant was made between the Lord and Abraham, and the land was sealed as a timeless promise to Abraham and his offspring (Genesis 15).
A place of intercession – The prophet Joel called for intercession by leaders* on behalf of the people and their devastated economy. (*If you know Jesus, you’re a leader!)
God has a place of “altaring” for us
There is a place of “altaring” and a price of altering. Altars have a price--God intends that something be “altered” in us when we come to altars. To receive the promise means we make way for the transformation.
Have you ever felt that the Lord put in your heart an expectation of promise? Such aspirations come from the Lord (Psalm 62:5). You sense anticipation of something God has put in your heart and underwritten by promises in His Word. You look at the promise and begin to picture in your mind what it’s going to be like. The fact is, we often visualize things that have nothing whatsoever to do with what God wants to do with us.
Abraham knew there was a place for him, and God has a “place” for you. There is a longing in every human heart for where we are meant to be, but we get caught up in our notion of how it’s going to be fulfilled. When Abraham was told by the Lord he had a place, he probably imagined a verdant valley, flowing stream, lovely mountains. But the Scripture says he came into the place and there were Canaanites in the land. The Canaanites were the most perverted, corrupt culture in human history. They were the Satanists of that time.
Abraham’s building of the altar represents his saying: “I’m accepting a promise, understanding that this is different than what I thought it was going to be, but it’s also something that I believe God can bring to pass. I trust You, Lord, that You will make it work.”
Be encouraged to let your heart receive the promise and embrace wherever you are right now, even if it seems much different that what you hope for. If the Lord is there with you, He can make it work, but it will require the building of an altar on your part to say, I’m willing, as well as your trust that God is greater than your preconception of how it’s supposed to be.
Abraham calls on the Name of the Lord
When the Bible says that Abraham called on the Name of the Lord, it was more than prayer. The word “name” contains the concept of character.
Our perspective of God is on this side of the completion of the Old and New Testaments. But in Abraham’s time, God was just beginning to rework His communication with fallen humanity. Abraham answered a call because he believed in God and sensed Him drawing his heart to a promise of something that he could not be in himself.
Abraham believed that there was a true and living God in the midst of the pagan culture around him. Now the Lord says to him: I want to teach you about Me. Abraham was coming to know the Lord and he called on the name—and character—of the Lord.
Abraham leaves and then returns to where God met him
When a famine strikes, Abraham decides to take matters into his own hands and moves his family to Egypt (Genesis 12:1-12). That only creates a bigger problem than if he’d stayed and remembered the promise the Lord gave him. The Lord met him in Egypt anyway, helped him through, and Abraham returned to altar he’d made and called on the name of the Lord (Genesis 13:4).
We all fall for that. God’s really busy and He may not notice what I need right now. But if God has a place for you and He’s showing you Himself in that place, provision will never ultimately be your problem unless you try to figure out how to make it for yourself.
There are people who have launched out on your own and distanced yourself from the place the Lord says He has for you. And the Lord says, You know Me differently from the way you are acting right now. Just as surely as He met Abraham and brought him back to the place of the altar, He wants to meet you today. But you’ve got to decide to come to that altar.
That altar, the Cross of Jesus ultimately is what the Table and the Elements represent. Whatever may be your sense of having violated trust with God (and that usually constitutes having violated trust with other people or a compromise you knew was not worthy) the Lord calls you to come back. Abraham wanted to move on in knowing God, so he came back to the altar he had built, calling on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13; Zechariah 13:9).
Redemption means fulfillment of God’s purpose in you
Following the episode of stress between he and Lot over territory, Abraham graciously offers Lot his choice of the land, saying he will take whatever remained beyond it (Genesis 13). Abraham may have wondered if in doing that, he’d given away the store. But the Lord appears to him and says, I still have the land for you, and I want you to pace it out and see its dimensions. As a result of that, Abraham built an altar.
Have you ever wondered if, because of something that has taken place, what you thought your life was going to be will never be realized to the degree it might have?
I believe it’s a very clear statement from God’s heart saying that ultimately, you don’t need to worry about the things that seem to encroach on the realization of God’s purpose in your life. There are some things that are irrecoverable; you can’t go back and scrape up all the pieces of everything. But our life is not constituted only of those pieces. There are issues over which the Lord promises to bring about the fulfillment of His purpose in you, notwithstanding the thing that’s happened. That’s what redemption is about (Joel 2).
The Lord is telling Abraham that the loss is not irrevocable as far as His purpose in him is concerned. And to that, Abraham built an altar.
There are some who need to come today and say, Lord, I’m going to decide that You have not called me to lead a second-rate life because I allowed second-rate things to cut in on what was Your first-rate plan. And let the Lord work His redemption fully and thoroughly as you come to the altar.
The price of altering
What it takes to build an altar are rocks, broken things. The geological application is relevant: there are volcanic explosions in our lives, seismic events, the grinding of life.
You can take hard things and arrange them before the Lord or you can drag the rocks around and be burdened by them. Or when you’re frustrated at lugging them around, you get mad and throw them at somebody else. The way you build an altar is to bring those hard, broken things before the Lord and put them there.
The price of altering is that you have to pour your life out over it: Lord I come and present myself to You.
At the altar, the price was paid for renewal when we’ve been at a distance, for securing hope that we may have thought was lost, and for receiving promise even if it’s in an unpleasant environment. As we come to the Table, we come to the ultimate altar, where the ultimate promise and provision is incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
THERE ARE TIMES WHEN ONLY A PRIVATE, FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE WITH THE LORD CAN SETTLE THINGS FOR YOU. THE BUILDING OF ALTARS ESTABLISHES THOSE TIMES AS MILESTONES IN OUR LIFE AFTER WHICH WE ARE NEVER THE SAME. HOW DO YOU BUILD AN ALTAR YOU TAKE THE HARD THINGS IN YOUR LIFE AND ARRANGE THEM BEFORE THE LORD
The Altars of Abraham
DVD Album
On his journey, Abraham was met by the Lord, received His promise, and sealed it by building an altar. In that is a practical truth for us: from heaven God will meet us with a promise, and, like Abraham, we complete that spiritual transaction at an altar. Whether it's a physical altar or one established in our hearts, it involves opening to God's promise and following Him unto its fulfillment. Abraham's walk with God is also a great study in how the Lord meets us at times when it seems like the promise is never going to be realized and reminds us, in a unique way, that He is the God of faithfulness who keeps His word.
This four-part Spirit-Formed TV series focuses on how altars are built, the significance of them in the life of Abraham, and how those same things are processed in our own lives.
About Jack Hayford
Jack Hayford knows the awesome power of God firsthand. When he was a baby, he was gripped by a life-threatening illness. But as a result of the earnest prayers of friends and family, he was miraculously healed. The doctors had no other explanation except that the grace of God snatched him back from the brink of death. Several years later, Jack was struck down again by sickness. This time it was polio. The church elders anointed him and prayed for his recovery. God heard their petitions and granted a second miracle. These two extraordinary events ignited in Jack's heart a passion for God and convinced him that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in the contemporary church. "Contrary to our preconceptions, God is not economical with healings and miracles. Such wondrous works are frequently attending the proclamation of truth in Jesus' name," asserts Pastor Jack.
Jack Hayford serves as President of The Kings University (formerly The King's College and Seminary) in Los Angeles, which he founded in 1997. From 2004 to 2009, he also served as President of The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. He is probably best known, however, as "Pastor Jack," founding pastor of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, California, where he served as senior pastor for more than three decades. A prolific and best-selling writer, Pastor Hayford is the author (or co-author) of more than 100 books and has composed 600 hymns and choruses, including the internationally known and widely recorded "Majesty."
He is an acknowledged "bridge-builder," helping to forge healthy bonds among all segments of the Body of Christ. He is recognized for his balance in preaching the Word, avoiding extremes while not diluting or compromising the demands of truth. Pastor Jack's heart to bring unity across all denominational and racial boundaries has given him an open door to minister in all kinds of settings
Dr. Hayford and his wife, Anna, have four children, eleven grandchildren, and a growing number of great-grandchildren.
http://www.jackhayford.org/teaching/articles/a-time-of-altars/
No comments:
Post a Comment