Building Alters

Hey readers!

Today I wanna talk about alters. There are a lot of alters in the bible and a lot of sacrifices that the people of Israel made. The alter that I want to talk about though is found in 1 kings 18. 

I'm not going to quote the whole chapter(waaay too long) but it's a really cool part of scripture. Elijah has just challenged the king, the prophets of Baal and half the nation to a showdown on Mount Carmel. Elijah builds an alter to The Lord and he rains down fire from heaven proving once and for all that God is the one true God. A nation turns to God in a day because one man built an alter. The heart cry of Elijah was enough to stir the heart of God to move in a powerful way. 

The interesting thing that Elijah did was pour water over the sacrifice. Elijah didn't do this just to be difficult. Nothing is hard for God. If God had just made a flame appear under the sacrifice then Elijah's prayer would have been answered. The reason he poured on water is because he couldn't be satisfied with anything other than the full fire of God raining down from heaven. 

Some times we pray sparky prayers. Prayers like "oh God! Just give us a few sparks. Nothing too special in our church, we want to keep you contained inside our comfort zone ok? A few sparks should keep the nutters on the front row happy. Then we can just get back to 'doing church' and feeling good about ourselves..."

I believe God is raising up a generation of intercessors and revivalists who will not be satisfied with 'a few sparks'. This generation needs to encounter a God worth living for! The fiery rain of heaven is the answer! This is how revival is born. The age old story of man's desperation for God and God's pursuit of his beloved bride is being relived and retold on a grand scale that creation has never encountered before! However, this grand new scale of awakening demands a grand new scale of fire raining down into the hearts of a generation. This is God's passionate response to our heart cry: "Somebody! Build me an alter!"

Spiritual alters are the foundation on which Revival is built and prayer and intersession are the process by which they are built. They are symbols of mans dependence on and desperation for God's presence. Without him we are just a pile of dirt but with him we are a royal priesthood. Alters are the embodiment of this idea and a landing pad for the angels of heaven. As we humbly and constantly lay our lives on these alters God answers us and opens the floodgates of heaven over us.

I recently heard a story in a sermon told by Cindy Jacobs about a group of kids who spent hours interceding and asking God to move. One meeting in a mall (Not a typo by the way. This group was praying in a mall, not a hall.) resulted in people nearby falling onto the pavement and being unable to stand up until someone told them about Jesus. It was like they were literally glued to the pavement! Healings and salvations were taking place and Gods glory was manifested! The secret behind this amazing miracle? They had been praying for five hours. No wonder God was moving! These guys spent five hours at a time, building alters!

The challenge: (I should hope it's pretty obvious!) let's pray! Lets interceed! Lets live hard for Him. Come on Church! Lets build an alter!

Jack the church kid

The mission... Should we choose to accept it...?

Hey guys and gals!

Philippians 3:18-21 says:

18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Sharing the heart of God means that we weep over a generation of lost souls. But in the midst of destructive living, perversion, guilt, and shame we are called to bring the hope of Jesus to the hopeless.

Perversion means the wrong version. People are following their stomachs because they are looking for fulfilment. Looking for the love of God. Humanity was destined, designed for relationship with Daddy God. This is the reason we are alive. The secret longing of every human heart. The world has a wrong definition of love because they don't know that God is the origin of love. They delve deeper into sin looking, hoping to stumble across love, fulfilment, acceptance. These are the things that we receive through intimacy with Daddy God and the world's substitute will not satisfy.

God is longing to fulfil the dreams and desires of the lost. He wants desperately to pour himself into the hole in our hearts that nothing else could quite fill. This is our generation. Not the world's generation, ours, and therefore, God's. God has sent his army of revival warriors to redeem his people and bring them home to their Father's house.

Satan tries to use shame and hopelessness to separate humanity from God but there is an answer. You're it.

We are the ones called to actively (not passively) participate in the writing of history. The requirements of a world changer are not much. You don't need a theological degree or to be one of the "special people". Jesus gave us commandments and a commission. I'm beginning to understand that they aren't separate things. In order to change the world, to make disciples of all nations and advance the kingdom of heaven you just need to follow the simple procedure as Jesus instructed us to.

Step 1. Love God

Step 2. Love people

The challenge: love requires action. Love requires you to weep over the lost as Jesus does. Love requires you to love strangers,old friends, and people who hate you equally (perhaps that last one even more so). The two commandments that Jesus gave us to live by are not just nice words to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, they are a formula for revival. They are the answer to the desperate pleas of a generation on the brink of self destruction.

The requirements of a world changer are simply that we are capable of love and we keep hope, no matter what. We live in a paradox where we are actually incapable of changing the world and yet that is the destiny that God has set before us. The breakthrough comes when God works through us to make what was previously impossible inevitable. Standing on the shoulders of Daddy God there is nothing that can keep us from achieving the ultimate goal which is revival!!!

Jack the church kid.