Altar

Today's word is altar. The altar is a sign of God. It is the focal point of connection with Him, the place where sacrifice is slaughtered and offered and shared with God. We might always be thinking of God, about Him, but the altar is where we go TO Him. I do not know how the ancients made earthen and stone altars. Apparently they could be single stone pillars with fire around them, or barbeque slabs with fire underneath - I haven't found a blueprint. And you are correct, altars represent an attitude in us. And the whole idea of altars is a big item in God's vocabulary.

There are a lot of interesting articles about altars, "mizbeach," online. I found this one especially interesting: Mizbeach Ha’ola, The Altar of Burnt Offering. The Hebrew word for altar begins with mem, for Messiah, with the purpose of connection of life dynamic and thanksgiving. Kind of a two-way street. We see the same thing in the name of God, YHWH, where the divine channels down through one window and up from the other. God is one - both windows.

Some of the other sites on God's altars mention that idolators' altars are cursed, even if they have the same form as Jewish altars. A difference noted is that the idolators' altars were at the front of the facility, and the altar in Jerusalem was inside the Temple. What I make of that is that with the idolators' altar you were expected to pay first. The Temple was a house of prayer: you were let in regardless, worked out with God how you would honor Him (that is not doctrine, just me thinking).

The altar in Jerusalem was a point of connection. An altar in our home can be one too. My mother had a prayer bench to kneel on with a Bible open on the front of it. Some can go to the Lord sitting back on an overstuffed chair. I knelt on the floor in front of a folding chair at Grace Bible Church in Honolulu. Have a place.