A True Altar Unto A True GOD
In the midst of the mountains we made our camp, amongst the rocks we stood. A people of a stony heart. The rock tried our feet and ankles to see if we could stand amongst a true God. The mountains reminded us how small our complaints were and how humble we were to be before one greater than ourselves. But we took our eyes off God and we sought out our own laws and statutes to worship, because the true God we could not see. God told us to search and know him with our heart.
Jeremiah 29:12, 13
· Than shall you call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
· And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Though we would not listen, God still had the same laws and principles for our lives.
We went after other gods that cause us to turn on our brothers with blood shed and greed for another mans goods. Kneeling at altars that another built.
But God had the same laws and principles for our lives. With our broken promises unto God. We went through dry rough places that cause us to have not, because we seek our own way and did not wait to be lead by God. We were a brutish and a stiff neck people.
Jeremiah 17:23
· But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.
But God’s laws and principles are still the same.
1 Samuel 15: 22, 23
· And Samuel said, hath the lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. And to hearken than the fat of rams.
· For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
As you read on in this script you will find that Saul was striped of the throne.
God is still calling all to build your own altar (a place of sacrifice) before him. The sacrifice is your heart upon the altar.
Psalm 51: 17
· The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God thy will not despise.
But we still search out another’s altar. We have polluted the place of sacrifice by not building our own altar before God. We pour out ourselves upon an altar that another has built. We ask make us clean oh God, but we have not built an altar onto God.
We can not sacrifice our hearts to God on an altar we have not built. Should God be mocked? Here in Psalm he tells of how we go about leasing a place to commune with him. He said we should be still in our own place with him. So therefore if we lease a place to commune with God our sacrifice is unacceptable and God will not have it. And the glory of our worship to him is shame. God also states that it is spiritually unlawful because it is not your altar. We are interacting with God under a lie and pretence. Untruth, Falsehood.
Psalm 4: 2, 4
· O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? How long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Se’lah.
· Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your own bed, and be still. Se’lah
Exodus 20:5
· Thou shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: For I the Lord thy God is a jealous God…..
2 Corinthians 11:2
· For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
So to be espoused unto one God, there is but one altar unto God and one sacrifice. Our own altar keeps us undefiled unto righteousness.
Unless we build our altar unto God and make the true sacrifice we will never truly know God. Going around from altar to altar is a wasted life we are only fooling ourselves. In the Bible God called it Whoring after other gods.
We were born unto God and so shall live unto God. He said he will take away the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh, so that we may know what is acceptable unto him.
Ezekiel 11: 19, 20
· And I will give them one heart ,and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them an heart of flesh:
· That they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people and I will be their God.
Philippians 2:13, 14, 15
· For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure:
· Do all things without murmurings and disputing.
· That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, with rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shall shine as lights in the world.
Build your altar before God daily and he will be in the midst of your daily life.
©Sharon Smith4/2/12