Altar of Help

Tuesday 5 April
READ: Gen.12:6-9
MORE LESSON: Luke 1:5-11

God relates with men through altars. Altars are high places of spiritual exchange. They are places where memorials are created for generations. Noah was the first man to build an altar to God (Gen. 8:20) and Abraham was the next. Abraham built an altar to God in Gen.12 and he continued to build altars to God throughout his years of sojourn. Abraham had a strong consciousness of the altar that made him to enjoy help all through his years on earth. A wise Christian that will make it in this world must know the place of the altar. Abraham watched over the altar to the point that in Gen.15 he stayed awake to drive vultures away from eating the sacrifice he offered to the Lord.
Men who build altars to God have unique testimonies. In Gen 20 Abraham’s wife was taken by the king of the land, and Jehovah the God of Abraham's altar rose on his behalf to fight his battle and plead his cause before the king. Anyone who has altars raised to Jehovah will be defended by Him. Abraham did not have to go to Abimelech to fight physically; his altar spoke for him. You do not need to fight physically and howl abuses to fight your enemies. Expend your strength in building solid altars of prayer, fellowship and sacrifice to God and He will arise on your behalf. Restoration came to Abraham with riches added; when you service your altar of help properly, God gives restoration with benefits. In Gen 21:33-34, Abraham erected an altar in Beersheba and God caused Him to sojourn successfully in a strange land. It is a lie that you cannot prosper in the land because you are not an indigene. God who caused Joseph and Daniel to prosper in their land of sojourn is alive to make you prosper in yours. God also did it for Isaac in the land of his sojourn (Gen.26): he obeyed God and sowed where God planted him and prospered in the land. He enjoyed help because he also built an altar of help in Gerar, And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well: Gen.26:25.
What can hinder the altar of help from bringing help for a man?

 i) Refusal to service the altar due to delayed answer to prayers (Luke 1:5-11). Zacharias and Elizabeth serviced their altar even while childless and their testimony changed; God blessed them. 

ii) Doubts at the altar. Keep the faith. Zacharias almost lost the help from the altar due to doubt but thank God that the altar of God also speaks mercy. Through mercy he still got his blessing though he had to be dumb for a season. This couple serviced the altar and got a unique son worth ten sons; the forerunner of the Lord Jesus came through them. 

Receive grace to service your altar and great help will be your portion.

Prayer/Action
* I receive grace and diligence to service my altar.
* I receive a new consciousness of the altar that I might truly benefit thereof, in Jesus’ name.
* The altar of God will bless me and lift me on high this year, in Jesus’ name.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
I declare that my enemies will not capture me the way they captured Samson, in the mighty name of Jesus.