“Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” (Genesis 35:1, NIV)

I have been going through a lengthy series called “Altar Building” on the “Life To The Full” podcast with Nancy Campbell, and it has been such a God send. Early in our marriage my husband and I were on fire to the Lord. What He told us to get rid of, we got rid of. He cast a great vision in our lives about family and we were faithful to follow. Somehow along the way we began to lose our fervor. I would say that the first thing to do was to pray every night together. That seemingly small regular act did more to keep us close to God than we ever realized. 

The fruit of our complacency has been obvious - lack of energy towards our children, bitterness and apathy in our marriage. Glory to God we thrive the most when we remain near to Him! Without Him we revert back to our lifeless ways. The crux of the podcast is about the importance of having a family altar. A daily coming to our Lord to praise, pray and read His word together as a family. The original alter fire was supernaturally lit by the Lord Himself (Leviticus 6:13) and the priests were commanded to never allow the fire to go out. Morning and evening they were to tend to it in order to keep it burning. 

No longer are sacrifices like in the Old Testament necessary for us as Jesus Christ offered Himself once for all, but rather this is a type and symbol for us to follow as believers now. So important was the altar to the Old Testament saints that Isaac built it before he even pitched his tent! Dear brothers and sisters, God is willing to meet us and fill up our cups, we just need to be willing to trust Him by regularly coming before Him and sacrificing our time to do so. If you have grasped the concept of tithing your money as it comes in and not waiting until the end to see what’s leftover, then you can see that our time is the same. So often we think we don’t have the time to spend in God’s word, but it’s just the opposite! We can’t afford not to be in His word, worshipping and praying regularly!

This is a family activity, to be done with our children. A priority set and maintained in the household. It can be easy to wake up feeling fresh and ready to spend time with the Lord. Often by the end of the day we are weary and worn out, maybe even at the end of our rope with each other, not feeling much like pulling it together for prayer and reading of the word. That is exactly when we need to do it the most! I encourage you to find out more about altar building by listening to the podcast. I am going to end with a quote from the commentator Matthew Henry, “Wherever man has a tent, God should have an altar, where we have a house, He must have a church in it.”