When Abraham took Isaac up on the mountain to give him as a sacrifice to the Lord, what faith he had. As I was reading these words again, studying them, looking past what I have read so many times the Lord spoke to me.
What is the altar we make? What have we to sacrifice that we hold so dear to us? Look beyond your family, your children, and look inside yourself. What do you personally hold so dear that you want to sacrifice to the Lord but just cannot place on that altar. You put it all there and then before the fire can consume it you grab it back. Is it your money? This is so hard for so many people….so often they consider how it might be spent, who will use it in a way that perhaps we don’t think as what God intends……yes, we do try to think as God, or shall I say, believe that God thinks as we do? But this is not our business is it, how the sacrifice of money to the Lord is spent…..it is God’s business alone, and He always takes care of any problems arising with it. But I rabbit trail here…..
Is it our time, our time so precious, so little of it we believe; is it fear, our hurts, our disappointments, our unbelief at times….yes, we can and do make shrines of these things and believe we must keep them inside ourselves and show the world and our God that we carry these things as a sacrifice for Him……Phooey, our God says….the only sacrifice that He desires of these hurts, disappointments, fears, is that we lay them down in faith, in love and in trust to Him and leave them to burn on the altar, never again picking them up.
The altar the Lord wants us to be before is a constant altar of praise, a sacrifice of pure worship to Him, a sacrifice of thanksgiving for His goodness, His mercy and sweet grace upon our lives. His hand on us guiding us, leading us in the paths of righteousness for His sake, not our own. We walk the path He places us on because of Him, for His glory, and we should always remember that “but for the grace of God” we would not stand, we would not walk, we would not live the life He has given us. God has given us a life to be fulfilled each day in His blessings. How often do we fail to realize the blessings of God because we are living our sacrificial life of pain, heartache, hurts and disappointments. Let go of all the past, it weighs too much to carry with us on the journey to Heaven. You will definitely not be able to carry it to the throne room to worship when you arrive there, so why are you carrying it now? Place it on the altar of the Lord and watch it burn, burn, burn. I promise you will begin to feel those empty places in your heart and spirit fill up with love, peace and joy and the never ending presence of our Lord God.
Burn all at the altar, a real sacrifice, give it all up, once and for all. A sacrifice of worship to our God, a sacrifice showing Him our love, honor, faith and trust.
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