Building Tents and Pitching Altars

The life of Abraham is one that the Lord has brought Jenny and me to over and over. His faith in the promises of God has linked us to the provision of blessing and to be a blessing through the Seed of Jesus. Paul mentions Abraham more than any other Old Testament figure, and for that, there is a reason.

I have mentioned before how this season of transition has been being downloaded to us moment by moment, week by week even. And I find myself back again in the story of Abraham. Genesis 12:1-3 holds the promise that encompasses the journey and remainder of Abraham's life.

Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Those words of promise thrust Abraham into his life calling. Then the journey of faith began, and in those early verses of chapter twelve, we see Abraham as tent traveling itinerate, searching for that homeland promised to him and his generations.

PAUSE.

Sound like a familiar season? It is to us, and we find it with so many others. It is like God has pulled the carpet of security and predictability from under so many. Things that worked before are no longer working. God is leading us to trust and be led by His presence and guidance, much like He did with Abraham and the children of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness.

In verse seven we read, "And there he built an altar." In verse eight, just west of Bethel, which means "House of God," which holds significance as a place of Worship and Divine Encounters, he built another and called on the name of the Lord. Throughout the Genesis account of Abraham's life, we see a pattern of Abraham building altars to the Lord His God. There are six accounts where God visits Abraham either through a vision or in a literal "face-to-face" experience!

Altars are places of worship, sacrifice (surrender), and remembrance throughout the Bible. They signified a searching, longing, and intimacy with the living God!

Most of us remember King Saul as the first King of Israel because of his rebellion towards God. Before the Kingdom was taken away from him (not in his death, which was years later, but in a spiritual sense) after he had disobeyed God by not killing King Agag and saving the spoils God told through the prophet Samuel to destroy (Saul had already been reprimanded and told his reign would end with him because he offered an unlawful sacrifice because he feared the people more than he did God - 1 Samuel 13). Many who read King Saul assume it was his disobedience that God hated most, but I believe there is something deeper revealed to us in 1 Samuel 14:35, where it says, "Then Saul built an altar to the Lord. This was the first altar that he built to the Lord" (italics mine).

If we look at what we studied already on altars and their significance, this speaks to us about the content of King Saul's heart and the urgency, or lack of urgency, in His seeking of the Lord for worship, surrender, and remembrance of the goodness of God. It was David's heart for the Lord, first developed in the lonely fields and hillsides while tending to his father's sheep, that paved the way for his kingship, and a promise that he would always have an heir on the throne, ultimately being fulfilled as Jesus came through the line of David!

In Exodus 33:11, we see why Joshua was God's choice to replace Moses when his stent of leadership over Israel had been complete, "So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle." Ministry is never the focus of God. It is the overflow of intimacy with Him. At least that is and has always been His intention.

I want to finish these thoughts by taking one last look at the verses we started with about Abraham and jumping forward into the New Testament. The title of this blog is "Building Tents and Pitching Altars." Psalm 91 and John 15 are counterparts that reveal that the key to the promises of God is the person of God. If you require healing, do not seek healing but the Healer. If you need provision, do not seek the provision but the Provider. These sections of Scripture speak to us of abiding and remaining in the constant flow of intimacy with God. It is the key to EVERYTHING!

But we tend to pitch temporary altars. We dip in and out of God, depending on our busy schedules. We seek Him just when we need something, or are struggling. God becomes part of our story as opposed to our EVERYTHING! That is not what Abraham did. He BUILT ALTARS, and there is a permanence to that! When he did leave those places, they did two things: They stood as a testament to God for all the world to see and they were places of Divine Encounters that he could return to in the future.

Now let's move to Matthew 17:1-8, where Jesus was Transfigured (the earthly veil lifted and Jesus manifested His eternal glory) before Peter, James, and John. In verse four, Peter says to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." In this instance, the glory of Jesus is revealed, and Peter wants to stay in that place and build a church (so to speak). He wants to camp out in the glory, not understanding what Jesus had already said in Luke 17:20-21:

"The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."

Is that not our tendency as well? We want to stay in safe places where nothing can touch us. We do not want to live in temporary dwellings like tents where we have to depend on God for each step of the way. That would require us to lose our grip of control.

BUT...God is calling us to step out of comfortable and safe. That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. I think a lot of invitations for people to become Christian, or "born again," missed that part of the message. Jesus never did. The invitation has always been to intimacy and total interdependence.

In Jeremiah 35, God asks the prophet to speak with the Rachabites, for they had remained pure in heart in their devotion to the Lord. When questioned by Jeremiah, they shared that all these generations they had honored the command of their father (one of those who came into the promised land under the leadership of Joshua), that they would abstain from wine and dwell in tents, as temporary citizens of the promised land lest they get sucked to the lustful lifestyle of the inhabitants, pursue the pleasures of this world, and forget the Lord their God.

God's response to this family is that they would escape the pending judgment that was coming upon the people of Judah.

There is a lot packed into those few verses about Abraham, being one who "Pitched his tent and built altars."

God has clearly spoken to Jenny and me, that though there may be a "place" where we build a ministry, and along with there being nothing wrong with owning a house, our trust and focus needs to remain on Him. Let me finish with these verses from Hebrews 12:28-29:

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire."

As you step out in things God has got you, it may feel shaky, but there is One Thing that will not be moved…Him!