The Altar in Our Heart

Photo: champagnegirladventures.com

Altars.
What are they made of?
Satiny polished marble. Smooth glowing wood.
Or random piled-up sticks. Or rocks.
We put candles on them, and pictures, and carved images to remind us of God.

But altars have less importance as objects than as places of activity.
Altars are places of sacrifice and worship.
They accommodate joy and pain, celebration and death.
God's people kill in their shadow, then raise the slaughtered lamb in offering.

Ancient priests did it.
Roman soldiers did it.
And every time we raise the knife to our own selfishness, we do it, too.
Mount Moriah. The Jerusalem temple. Calvary.
Altars, all.
And the altar at which we worship today does not reside in our church's sanctuary. We have built it, every one of us, in our own hearts.This is where we know the joy and pain of real sacrifice and, when the sacrifice is complete, the peace.

Make an altar of earth for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. Wherever I cause My Name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you.--Exodus 20:24

Is Anybody Home?

photo:thepress.net

The Tent of Meeting.
That's where You met Moses, Lord.
Before the tabernacle.
Before the temple.
Moses put up a tent and whoever wanted to talk to You went there.
Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.--Exodus33:7

Moses used to carry this tent around with him. It didn't stay in one place. The tent went with him wherever he went.
I'm thinking, Lord, that if Moses could do this, why can't I?
And, if I can, what does it look like?
Where do I meet you? Where do you come to me?

Can it be in the red glow of a summer sunset?
Can it be in my baby's smile?
Can it be in the smell of fresh bread?
Or a candle's glow? Or the morning sun through stained glass? Or that small circle of bread held above a cup of wine as Your body and blood?
You are there, in all these and more, if I have the wit to see you.

I need to find my Tent of Meeting, the place where You show yourself.
And then I can say, like Moses did:
Now show me Your Glory!--Exodus 33:18

The Not-So-Great Commission

Photo: chantalsouaid.com

The Great Commission? Honestly, I'm not always a fan.
At least not the way I normally see it done.
Yes, Christ told us to take His gospel into the world.
Once.
In only one place in the Bible does He give us these instructions:
Go and make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.--Matthew 28:19-20

But He didn't say HOW.
He didn't say TELL them.

Why can't we teach by showing them?
Why can't God speak up for Himself?
The Bible seems to think He can.

Are you going to plead Baal's cause? If Baal is really a god, he can defend himself...--Judges 6:31

Baal couldn't, of course, but the God of Israel can and does:
No plan of Yours can be thwarted.--Job 42:2
Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.--Psalm 115:3

God does not need us to preach.
In preaching to unbelievers we too often look and sound exactly like those with whom we disagree--with atheists, for instance. An atheist believes as fervently as I do, and he or she wants the same thing I do. He wants to convince me he's right.
"Agree with me," he says. "Admit I'm right, or you will pay the price of your folly."
That, my friend, is preaching boiled down to its simplest component.
And we, trying to fulfill what we think Christ commanded, often do exactly the same.

Better, I think, to do what Christ told us to do not once, but many times:
Believe. Obey. Follow. Love. Forgive. Serve.
In doing these, we will not only speak the Gospel. We will BECOME the Gospel.

Swatting the Gnats

Photo: mudpreacher.org

We all stumble in many ways...--James 3:2
That's for sure.

Temptations surround us all. And some of them are pretty obvious. Ten Commandment stuff.
Lying, cheating, stealing, wanting what is not ours, hating....we know them, and we know they end in sin.
But reading and studying the Bible?
Stumbling over the Word of God?
Are you kidding?

No, actually.
Even deep, careful study of the Bible has its snares.
We miss the mark when we revere the words more than their Author.
You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.--Matthew 23:24

We pick, and poke, memorize and philosophize, the words themselves. But where is God in all of that?
The Lord says, These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.--Isaiah 29:13

There is a heart to the Word of God, a heart we must wear before one memorized verse will have any effect at all.
God gave us His Word not to first to memorize it or pick it apart in study, but so that we can know, believe, and follow Him.
We have to know God, not just His Words.
Gnats, after all, hover because something attractive has called them. They do not bring anything of value at all.
The words of the Word of God are small, too, and serve as indicators, as warnings, as signs, of a much greater Presence.
The power does not belong to them, but they point to it. 
Look beyond them, or they will trip you up.

Bless You? Are You Sure?

photo: mccgd.org

There seems to be a disagreement regarding blessings.
God wants to bless His children--we know that. But how, exactly, does He do it?
We think we know what some blessings look like--good health, wealth, food, safety, family, friends, love, faith. All good gifts from Him.
But, it's funny.
He seems to look at blessings in another way.

Blessed are the poor in spirit...
Blessed are those who mourn...
Blessed are the meek...
Blessed are those who hunger and search for righteousness...
Blessed are the merciful...--Matthew 5:4-7

Those kinds of blessings don't look as pleasant. In fact, are they blessings at all?
Well, He thinks they are and when I think about it, I think I know why.
These blessings are more about God than about me.
These bless the spirit, not the flesh.
These bring me closer to God and, as such, require strength. They don't bring ease.
These blessings are not God reaching down and scooping up more transformed dirt and giving it to me as bits of His own creation.
These blessings are God reaching down and giving me, giving all of us, bits of Himself.

DAD! What are You Doing?!!

Photo: japanesejiujitsu.blogspot.com

It was hot that day, like most other days.
Nothing special, except that Dad told me we were going to take a trip.
He got me up early, and we took two of our servants, some axes, and went to the grove.
I liked these days. For so many mornings of my 33 years, we had come here to cut wood. The axe felt natural, and its swing so familiar, almost like an extension of my own tight muscles.
And today we would go to Mt. Moriah to make an offering to God, my father and I.
Yes, a good day to begin.
Mom waved to us, smiling, as we walked down the road, and we walked three days before the rocky crags of the mountain rose before us.

Stay here, Dad said to the servants, while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.--Genesis 22:5

The boy. Certainly, I was a man by then. Dad never did get that.
And it took men to climb that mountain, especially with our burdens, the wood and the firepot. But we were missing something.

Father! The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
God himself will provide the lamb, he told me. --Genesis 22:7-8

So we laid the fire, then Dad asked me to climb onto the wood pile, and to lay down on it.
The sun was high and bright, and I closed my eyes for a few minutes. The walk had been long.
I heard Dad murmur and when I opened my eyes, I saw it...his knife raised high right above me.
Dad! Dad! What are you doing?

And then that sound...the booming echo and the blinding light. I never saw anything, but heard it:
Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.--Genesis 22:11-12

And the knife fell--not into my own flesh, but onto the ground, and my dad beside it. He did not look at me while I climbed down from the pyre, but looked up only when he heard the bray of the ram suddenly come out of the brush.

We had worshiped--we had both obeyed--and God had indeed provided the sacrifice.
Now, every time that I present my own sacrifice to God, I see again the upraised knife ready to pierce my own heart all those years ago. And I remember.
Dad dropped the knife because his own heart was already pierced, so he did not have to cut mine.
And I worship anew my God who is the Lord.

THIS is the Promised Land?

Photo: www.trekearth.com

The Israelites needed rescuing. They lived as slaves, miserable, with no way out.
But God saw their sad state and promised to bring them to their own land, free before Him.

I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians..I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement...I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.--Exodus 6: 6, 8

And He did.
He brought the Pharaoh to his defeated knees, then buried both him and his whole army under the waters of the Red Sea. 
And the Israelites were free.
Then they looked around. 

Where were the trees and streams of water?
Where was the fruit and fields ripe with grain?
Where were the olive groves?
All they saw was sand.
They were in the desert.
What the....?

God did not save them into Eden.
He freed them from Pharaoh, but not to lush ease.
He freed them into desert.

And why?
Because once they had shed their slavery, they still had to find Him.
And so it is with us.
Take away everything we once knew, and it sometimes feels like desert.
That's when we look for the pillars of cloud and fire.
Follow them, because they lead to the Promised Land.