The Altar of Prayer

There is no place on earth more exciting than when God shows up with His presence and no place more boring when He isn’t there.

A understanding of prayer is not complete with knowing what a Alter is and what it stands for:

1st) It’s place of sacrifice.

David Brainerd was a missionary to the American Indians. He would pray until he wear groves in the wood floor next to his bed and when he died the preparing his body found thick calusas on his knees. He inspired prayer in John and Charles Wesley, William Carey who was the father of modern missions, Jim Elliot, E. M. Bounds and many other on prayer.

Sacrifice does not always require obedience however obedience always requires sacrifice.

That’s why obedience is better than sacrifice.

1 Samuel 15:3 ESV

3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ”

1 Samuel 15:21–23 ESV

21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said, “Has 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 listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

New International Encyclopedia of Bible Words Altar

The altar was a place where guilty people could come to bring the sacrifices that would reestablish a harmonious relationship with the Lord

Leviticus 17:11 ESV

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

It was through this—the altar and the covering of one’s sins provided by the atoning sacrifice—that a sinner might approach a holy God. The altar thus was the point of contact with God: the place at which a sinning humanity might meet God in safety, with full assurance of forgiveness.

2nd) Its a place of memorial

It’s place we revisit to remember our special experience with the Lord.

It a place were we return to pray.

An altar no longer needs to be built with stone or wood. It can be a the steering wheel of a car, a chair in the den, or beside the bed in a hotel room.

An alter is more about prayer than a the place or setting. It is anywhere and anytime that we decide to recognize our existence in the throne room of heaven.

It is a place a decision to recognize our need to submit to God and ask for His divine help.

Personal Altar:

Matthew 6:6 ESV

6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Romans 12:1 ESV

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

We build a altar of personal prayer to not lay a animal sacrifice on it but for us to crawl on it to offer our life as a living sacrifice. To offer our self will.

We do this daily - to resubmit our life to him every day.

You enter that secret place with God through the altar of putting to death your flesh, your agenda, and your will.

The Part Removed:

Leviticus 4:11–12 ESV

11 But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung— 12 all the rest of the bull—he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place, to the ash heap, and shall burn it up on a fire of wood. On the ash heap it shall be burned up.

Each day, as we place our lives on the altar, we go about the work of removing what is not pleasing to God.

We search our hearts for

Unconfessed sin

Evil desires,

unholy motives

and wrong ideas

things that distract us from Him

things that He finds unpleasing in us

Expectations we have on our 5 year old will be different when she is 15.

The Part Shared:

Leviticus 6:25–27 ESV

25 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord; it is most holy. 26 The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it. In a holy place it shall be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting. 27 Whatever touches its flesh shall be holy, and when any of its blood is splashed on a garment, you shall wash that on which it was splashed in a holy place.

As we live a life of sacrifice its a life of giving ourselves to others.

We give something something of ourselves away to support others spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Ultimately your life is in God’s hands to be distributed to others as He sees best.

Mark 10:45 ESV

45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We say l will serve the Lord and say let Your will be done. Not my will done. Let me be a servant to serve others and not my own plans. Let my life be bread for others to eat.

The Part Consumed:

Leviticus 4:8–10 ESV

8 And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering he shall remove from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails 9 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys 10 (just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offerings); and the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering.

The best part of the sacrifice were to be consumed by fire. They were to be burned so that the aroma would ascend and please God.

These are things reserved for you and God alone. A place to grown in relationship and friendship with God.