Even though I feel like the revival movement here at Asbury is slowly winding down, my mind is still sucked in by the siren song of the altar every time I enter the chapel building.
I cannot be the same after seeing so many students on their knees in Hughes.
The altar functioned as a focal point within my revival experience. It challenged me to let go of fear and control before all my brothers and sisters in Christ. It became a place where I felt God’s boundless love for me like never before. His supernatural peace settled every restless urge within me.
During a recent service at First Alliance Church, Pastor Paul preached about thirsting and hungering for the Lord consistently. He encouraged the congregation to continue “living into our desperation and hunger for God.” We cannot grow spiritually without feeding our desire for Christ daily. Pastor Paul reminded us that “our mountaintop experiences must be included in the natural rhythms of each day. Take your altar heart (or your altered heart) into everyday life.”
These statements stuck out to me. There are parallels we can draw between the physical altar and an altered heart posture.
It’s hard to remember all that happened during those first five days of revival. And it’s impossible to preserve the sensation of the Holy Spirit within each of us. However, that doesn’t mean that all of the changes God worked on in our hearts are worthless and without power. We are still called to actively seek out our Father’s voice. We need to learn how to hear Him better and understand His will for us day by day.
So, what is the significance of the altar, and why is it essential to sustain our altered hearts?
In the Bible, the altar was meant to be a special place of worship where offerings were given to God. Altars were almost considered God’s table. They often held the broken bodies of animals sacrificed for the sins of the Lord’s people in the Old Testament. These holy structures were never fancy and were usually crafted with unhewn stones untouched by any tool.
Each of these unique features was followed per the Lord’s wishes in Exodus 20:24-25. It says, “make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. 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.”
Altars were also places of refuge for those running from the law. Yet in God’s temple, only priests could approach an altar without fear of arousing the Lord’s displeasure.
Each of these details can be used to make connections between the function of the altar in the Old Testament and modern-day Christians and how we interact with the sacred structure.
When we go to the altar, God calls us to lay our cares and burdens before Him. We are told to offer them up as a sacrifice to live for God in freedom and wholehearted devotion. We’re also God’s priests as 1 Peter 2:9 says, “but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” The altar is a safe haven even when we are dead in our transgressions and covered with sin.
Some ways that I plan to honor God’s work at the altar and preserve the altered posture of my heart are to act boldly and pray with humility.
I want to listen to the Holy Spirit when He asks me to step out in faith. This could mean going to the altar when a chapel message speaks to me or being more honest with my weaknesses before others.
I also want to set aside a quiet place to humble myself before God more frequently.
Will you allow yourself to be altered by the altar and join me?