A personal altar, not just a referred altar
Over the course of recent weeks, God has planted in my heart a fresh realisation and learning relating to the altar that was built by Jacob which we can read in Genesis Chapter 28. Take a moment to read the chapter, noting how this specific encounter turns things around for Jacob, and the generations after.
Let us journey with Jacob. Genesis 28:10 narrates the most normal thing to do before he rests for the night from a long travel, he selected a stone as a pillow to rest his head. He is done for the day, tired and weary with all the issues with his family, his inheritance, his possessions and relationships.
We can all relate to Jacob in some measure!
The story now shifts, and Jacob encounters God in a dream as he sleeps. Genesis 28:13-15 records that God declaring: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, spreading to the west, east, north, and south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you”.
Jacob woke up, amazed from his dream exclaiming “What an awesome place this is! Surely the Lord is in this place and I wasn’t even aware of it”
Who can relate to Jacob again?
In the same way, we all have been there in those times we can say “Oh wow, I was not even aware that God is in my chaos battling with me, but He is and He cares! Praise Him!
The next verses record that Jacob took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it up upright as a memorial pillar. He poured olive oil over it, and named the place ‘Bethel’, which means House of God.
It should get our attention that this is the first anointing recorded in the Bible, it was not to any person or a king or a prophet, but to a stone. How very symbolic and powerful.
However, in this moment, Jacob doesn’t just give thanks for blessings, or for anointing, or for the promises laid before him as part of his family tree. Jacob makes a personal declaration from this encounter that Yahweh is His God.
This is a key moment of personal relationship and faith. For Jacob, God is not just the god of his forefathers. This needs to considered given Jacob has some pretty good heroes of faith in his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac, his grandmother Sarah and mother Rebekah! Imagine for a moment how Jacob’s ancestors were able to pass on precious testimonies, that there is a God who looks after them and is worthy of all honour and praise. But crucially, Jacob can now add his own testimony, and Jacob says that He is my own personal God now!
Can we relate somehow to Jacob here? We honour and appreciate all the people in faith that was before us, and selflessly discipling us, may it be our parents, multi generation of believers, friends, pastors, life group! All of them reminding us that we serve a faithful God! But these are altar moments by referral.
God seeks out Jacob himself.
We also must seek our own encounter. And this is what we see for Jacob. After a personal encounter with God in his dream, he declares himself in v20: ‘Then the Lord will certainly be my God’.
You will be my God, not just because my parents or friends said so. This is what makes Jacob’s stone deeply personal. If there were travellers after him, it won’t make sense or mean anything to them at all. They will just pass by and pay no attention.
But to Jacob, it was his most precious encounter from God. He was a different man after that. Such was the affect upon his heart, that Jacob gave a tenth of everything he acquired, well before Malachi 3:10!
Genesis continues to record how Jacob journeyed in faith in God, and how he was renamed Israel after another dream. And of course, after Jacob, came Joseph’s journey to Egypt, followed by Moses’ journey back to Canaan.
Today, we reclaim that we are also mighty descendants Jacob’s. And this is because of the death and resurrection Jesus.
Galatians 3:26-29 declares us:
…in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ…If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
We are living the days that our forefathers prophesied and prayed that we continue to move under the banner of Jesus, not with our own pride and illusions that we can do it on our own or that we can live through the faith of another. In fact, that is what the enemy loves, to steal and destroy our own personal encounter with God.
For others of us, it may be that we are living the world too much, full of excuses, whereas 1 John 2:15-17 says:
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
We need a fresh revelation that we serve a God who cares deeply for us! Like Jacob who seems like he was just going through the motions, picking a stone to rest, the same goes for our lives, and feelings of going through motions, but in the everyday motions, we can encounter God, and remember that such an encounter belongs to me! May we also declare that the Lord will be my God, my Lord Jesus who is the Christ, and my Saviour and Redeemer King!
We say thank you Lord, Holy Spirit have your way, transform us, mature us, keep us rooted in you. We long to build our lives as an altar under Jesus’ identity and authority. No more altars of another, or by referral for us anymore! We desire and seek the Lord for a person encounter, a personal altar, a personal ‘stone’ to build our lives upon!