Building An Altar

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” Rom.12:1 [NKJV].

At his deathbed, my spiritual father said to me, “Your heart is the most important thing, so guard your heart with all your life”. I knew that and I thought to myself, who does not know that? But permit me to reiterate, the most important thing in ministry is your heart. Ministry work is a heart work and you and I are called to be altar builders. If there is any secret in being a successful Christian, or a successful businessman, or a successful professional, or a successful minister, it is learning the art of building altars. I can give you examples from my life of building altars. In the place of prayer for instance, I have built an altar before God in my prayer walk. I go before God at midnight; while everybody is sleeping, I hit the streets. But guess where I am? I am not on the streets; I am on the altar before God. That is the meeting place and I service the altar consistently. How do I service the altar? I service the altar by showing up consistently and simply praying. ‘I have come today my Father and my God in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I have come to adore You, to worship You because You are beautiful beyond description’. And I go on and on, servicing the altar. You have to learn how to build an altar. So I am going to start by teaching you how and then by God’s grace we will delve into more details.

Couples, husband and wife, you must have an altar. It is called a family altar. Note that the family altar does not negate your own personal altar. Even if you service your family altar daily as a couple, it still does not negate your personal altar. I know some couples do theirs daily and I think that is truly fantastic. We don’t do ours everyday but we do it. You MUST have an altar, where you come together to pray and worship the Living God. Prayer is the sacrifice on the altar. Another example of altar building is when I have an issue; I build an altar in my heart concerning that issue. I pray that the Holy Spirit will help you understand this. Let us say I have something troubling me, I take that thing and I build an altar for it before God, and I service the altar. Servicing that altar sometimes means I am sowing a seed towards it, or I am cutting out prayer time towards it, or I am dedicating worship time towards it. And that particular thing takes my focus at that time. I build an altar for my business for instance, that is the power of success. I show up and I service it consistently. Then miracles happen and people will say, God is faithful. Yes, He is faithful.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, deepen my understanding of altar building; help me build altars and service them consistently, in Jesus Name