That altar, the Cross of Jesus, ultimately is what the Table and the Elements represent. Whatever may be your sense of having violated trust with God (and that usually constitutes having violated trust with other people or a compromise you knew was not worthy), the Lord calls you to come back. Abraham wanted to move on in knowing God, so he came back to the altar he had built, calling on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13; Zechariah 13:9).
Redemption Means Fulfillment of God’s Purpose in You
Following the episode of stress between he and Lot over territory, Abraham graciously offers Lot his choice of the land, saying he will take whatever remained beyond it (Genesis 13). Abraham may have wondered if in doing that, he’d given away the store. But the Lord appears to him and says, “I still have the land for you, and I want you to pace it out and see its dimensions.” As a result of that, Abraham built an altar.
Have you ever wondered if, because of something that has taken place, what you thought your life was going to be will never be realized to the degree it might have?
I believe it’s a very clear statement from God’s heart saying that ultimately, you don’t need to worry about the things that seem to encroach on the realization of God’s purpose in your life. There are some things that are irrecoverable; you can’t go back and scrape up all the pieces of everything. But our life is not constituted only of those pieces. There are issues over which the Lord promises to bring about the fulfillment of His purpose in you, notwithstanding the thing that’s happened. That’s what redemption is about (Joel 2).
The Lord is telling Abraham that the loss is not irrevocable as far as His purpose in him is concerned. And to that, Abraham built an altar.
There are some who need to come today and say, “Lord, I’m going to decide that You have not called me to lead a second-rate life because I allowed second-rate things to cut in on what was Your first-rate plan.” And let the Lord work His redemption fully and thoroughly as you come to the altar.
The Price of Altering
What it takes to build an altar are rocks, broken things. The geological application is relevant: There are volcanic explosions in our lives, seismic events, the grinding of life. You can take hard things and arrange them before the Lord, or you can drag the rocks around and be burdened by them. Or when you’re frustrated at lugging them around, you get mad and throw them at somebody else. The way you build an altar is to bring those hard, broken things before the Lord and put them there.
The price of altering is that you have to pour your life out over it: “Lord, I come and present myself to You.”
At the altar, the price was paid for renewal when we’ve been at a distance, for securing hope that we may have thought was lost, and for receiving promise even if it’s in an unpleasant environment. As we come to the Table, we come to the ultimate altar, where the ultimate promise and provision is incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
