The Altar

This is something that the Lord revealed to me a a while back, when I was having problems with a friend of mine. I think this is a message we all need to hear, its something we tend to forget.

Deuteronomy 27:5-7
5 And there you shall build up an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them.
6 You shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God.
7 You shall offer peace offerings, and shall eat there, rejoice before the Lord your God.

build an altar of whole stones without the use of an iron tool. the"whole" stones are made by God, they are exactly how he intended them to be, unbroken and untouched by man's "iron tools". in the same way God wants us to hav an altar of our own, not necessarily a physical place, but an altar in our hearts that is not tainted by the things of man. God wants us tolove Him and embrace Him the way He intended us to. full and complete devotion coming directly from our hearts. many times we come to the altar of theLord within our hearts and we have been broken and torn by something man hasdone to us. whether it be that a person has done wrong against us, that we hav done wrong against another person, some immoral thing we hav seen, some immoral thing we hav done, or something else along those lines . now,God says to bring these things before Him and confess, however many times we dwell upon these thoughts in our mind, even when we come before theLord. when these things begin to take center stage, our focus begins to shift away from God and onto watever that thing is that is bothering us. THIS IS BAD. firstly. we must confess these sins right from the beginning of our timeof meeting with the Lord, and then move on. if we go into time with theLord without first confessing, we are building Him a broken altar, an altarshaped by man, not shaped by the Spirit. and in this way we arehindering the Lord from fully sending us His blessings. secondly. we cannot spend that time with the Lord dwelling on that event, for in doing so, we allowshame and guilt to seep into our hearts. God does not want us to be ashamed or guilty, these thoughts are from the enemy. we have to allow theSpirit to guide us into wat we need to pray for, or in watever message God wants to send to us during that time. also, such things as pride and self-pity can be seen as these "iron tools". if we meet with the Lord and become prideful of an accomplishment we had that day, that is not of God, that is of ourflesh, and we are tainting God's altar in our hearts. we must glorify God forthe accomplishments of the day. in the same way we cannot do the opposite,we cannot come into time with the Lord and pity ourselves. saying, man mylife is bad. or, man i hated this today. or something else along those lines. The enemy is putting those thoughts into your mind to turn you against God. The enemy is trying to make us question wat God is doing. we must be reminded of God's Plan. we must surrender to Him and trust Him to lead us. so when going into our time with God, instead of having self pity, we need to surrender to His will and ask Him for wat our next steps should be.

so here's some what of an overview:
the altars to God in our hearts have to be shaped by the Spirit, not by our flesh. we cannot allow our sins to hold back the Lord's blessings which He wants to shower upon us. and that can only be done if the altar in our heart is of God, not of man. the altar must remain untainted by our flesh.