Day 6

The Daily Altar

Today's Scripture: Romans 12:1 (NLT)

There is a phrase in this verse so familiar that we walk past it without noticing the contradiction it contains. Paul calls us to be a "living sacrifice." But every sacrifice in the entire Old Testament was, by definition, a dead one. The lamb on the altar did not get up afterward. The bull, the dove, the goat — all of them gave their lives once and never again. The whole point of a sacrifice was that it was completed in death. And yet Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, deliberately puts these two impossible words side by side: living sacrifice.

This is not careless language. This is theological precision of the highest order. Because Paul is describing something that did not exist in the Old Covenant — a sacrifice that climbs up onto the altar and yet keeps breathing, that lays down its life and yet keeps living, that is offered fully to God and yet remains present to walk in the world. The Old Testament knew nothing of this. Only the new covenant, only the gospel of Jesus Christ, makes such a thing possible. And it is the very thing God is now calling us to be.

The challenge of a living sacrifice is the challenge that has tormented faithful believers for two thousand years: the altar is not a one-time visit. A dead sacrifice stays on the altar because it cannot leave. A living sacrifice can — and does, again and again — climb down. This is the great difficulty of the Christian life. It is not the difficulty of getting on the altar; it is the difficulty of staying on it. Most of us can manage a moment of consecration. What we cannot manage, in our own strength, is a lifetime of consecration. We climb on, and then by Tuesday afternoon we have climbed off, often without noticing the descent.

This is why the daily altar is the central spiritual practice of the believer who is serious about death to self. Not a one-time dedication, however dramatic. Not a youth camp moment forty years ago, however real. Not a marriage altar or a baptism testimony, however meaningful. Those moments matter — but they do not substitute for the daily climb. The believer who lives by the memory of a past altar instead of the practice of a daily one will find their consecration slowly leaking out of them, and they will not understand why.

The patriarchs of Genesis understood this. Abraham built altars wherever he went. From Shechem to Bethel to Hebron to Moriah — wherever Abraham's tent went, his altar followed. It was the most portable and the most permanent feature of his life. He did not have a temple. He did not have a tabernacle. He had altars, scattered across the land, marking every place where he had met God and surrendered to Him again. The altar was not an event in Abraham's life; the altar was the rhythm of Abraham's life.

This is what the daily altar means for us. Every morning, before the demands of the day rise up to claim you, you climb. Before the news, before the phone, before the email, before the agenda, before the conversations that will pull you in twelve directions — you climb. You place your body, your will, your plans, your reputation, your reactions, your tongue, your money, your time, your relationships, your fears, your ambitions on the altar one more time. You say, "Lord, I am here. I am Yours today. Take this body, this will, this life, and use it for Your glory until the sun sets."

And then you walk into the day as one who has been on the altar — and the difference is everything. The decisions you make from the altar are not the decisions you would have made off it. The reactions that rise within you when provoked are tempered by the fire of the altar. The temptations that come at you find a man or woman who has already given everything away, and so they find nothing left to seduce. You cannot be ruled by what you do not own, and the soul on the altar has signed away its rights at the foot of the cross.

This is the secret of the saints. Not that they never wandered. Not that they never struggled. But that they returned to the altar every single day, often many times a day, until the altar was no longer a place they visited but the very air they breathed.

Today, climb. Tomorrow, climb again. And the day after. Build the altar so often, in so many places, with such consistency, that your life becomes a series of altars stretching from where you started to where you will one day stand before the throne. Be a living sacrifice. Be holy. Be acceptable to God. This is your reasonable service. This is the only reasonable response to a God who gave everything for you.

Prayer

Father, I climb back onto the altar today. I confess that I have climbed down many times. I confess that the rhythm of my surrender has often been the rhythm of my self-recovery. Today I lay down again — my body, my will, my plans, my time, my words, my reactions. Hold me on the altar by the power of Your Spirit, because I cannot hold myself there. Make me a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to You. Amen.

Today's Challenge

Build a daily altar moment into your morning. Before checking your phone, before opening your day, take three minutes to literally pray a surrender of your body and will. Do this every day for the rest of June, and see what happens to your soul.

"The hardest thing about a living sacrifice is not climbing onto the altar — 

it is refusing to climb back down."