Time to Rebuild the Altar

One of my favorite events in the bible is the conflict between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on the famous Mt. Carmel. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest to see who was the real God: Baal or Jehovah? Which one (God) would send down fire to light a sacrifice presented to them, that would be the god that the people would serve from now on. Elijah allows the prophets of Baal to go first. They spend the morning putting together their altar and then they start begging for Baal to send down fire. They continue begging, even until it turned into downright raging in front of the crowd to get their God to send down fire from heaven. After allowing more than ample time for the prophets to get fire down from heaven Elijah takes center stage and starts to rebuild the sacred altar that was already on the Mt. Carmel. The sacred altar that the people of Israel had used to worship God was broken down. Altars can only breakdown because of a couple of reasons. One, is the fact that the altar is attacked from Satan. Attacks from Satan can take our eyes off the purpose that God has set for us. If we don’t prepare ourselves for the attacks by building up our spirits with digging deep into his word and building up our strength in God. Secondly the altars of our heart’s break down because of the lack of use. The altar of our hearts to worship, serve and obey God begins to breakdown when we leave our hearts alone without seeking God by serving and obeying God. We need to be praying today that God will restore our hearts and use us in his kingdom work of making disciples of other people in our lives. It’s time to bring our hearts to God and ask him to light them up with fire.