October 26, 2007
While talking to my wife Beth this afternoon ( my afternoon; her morning); she is in Bais, Negros Occidental Philippines where her and a team from her church are doing a weeks conference and then they are going to Tagbilaran, Bohol for another week of conferences. She was doing this mornings devotional in Bais on altars. After talking to her, I decided to follow her and write this for today's devotional.
I came across a little passage in Scripture which deals with building altars, something we’re not in the habit of doing in everyday life, but it is really relevant to our daily lives.
All day long I [the Lord] have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations -- a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; Isaiah 65:2-3 NIV
I’d never paid much attention to the offering of altars made on brick before. It ties back to God’s instruction about building altars:
If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. Exodus 20:25 NIV
They were to use strictly natural stone, because the altar sanctifies the gift and it must be holy. If the altar was made of brick or carved stones, it would represent the workmanship of men not God. Those who made the sacrifice would be doing it on their own efforts not based on God.
So what? We don’t build altars anymore, and we don’t give blood sacrifices like they did in Old Testament times. How could this possibly be relevant?
We do offer sacrifices in a sense, when we accept and serve Christ we are offering ourselves as living sacrifices. The question is, on what altar do we give them?
Do we offer ourselves based on our own efforts and merit, trying to earn our favor with God? Or do we do so, knowing that our sacrifice is only acceptable to God because of what Jesus did on the cross?
You don’t need to offer yourself based on your own efforts and perfection. You can’t. Only through acceptance of Jesus, His death and resurrection, will your sacrifice be acceptable.
Until next time,
May all you offer to God be done through the power of Christ not on an altar of brick you fashioned and designed!
Darrel Mason