altar and plow

Once again, it is getting late. When Jim is gone I burn the midnight oil. I think better at night. And it is quiet. I guess it takes my mind all day to gear up, but once it starts moving...it is hard to gear down. So, here I sit, in the quiet, with my thoughts, dwelling on this phrase that I am falling in love with. NO...it isn't written on my wall...not yet anyway.
I was looking at some Scripture in Acts about the Altar that Paul saw while passing through their town. Inscribed on the altar was 'to an unknown God'. I thought it was quite funny that they would make an altar to an unknown God, as if to say...."in case we missed you....". I have always wondered if people passed through my life, what would they see written on my altar. What would they observe as the object of my worship?
Don't fool yourself. We may think and say that we worship God, but everyone knows what is on our altar and what it is we worship. For some it is an unknown God...a God they don't know, have not experienced and don't really want to let in close. For others, it is an object, an ego, pride or people.
And yet, Christ has called us to place our lives upon His Altar. To sacrifice all. In Fact, Paul reminds us in Romans 12 that our lives are to be offered to God as living sacrifices-as our spiritual service of worship. Consecrated to Him. Our lives are to BE on the altar.
However, for most, as we pass through their lives we can see that they are not on the altar, but instead worshipping at the altar of an "unknown god". Funny...how everyone else sees that when we don't. Deceived....our gods are not really unknown....only to us because we won't admit them. For everyone else passing through sees them.
I want my life to BE on the altar.

The second word is plow. I first started praying over this word as I was studying through Hosea. Hosea 10 talks about breaking up the fallow, hard ground in our lives, for it is time to seek the Lord-until He comes to RAIN righteousness on you. As I have been seeking to sow righteousness, I have also been painfully aware that in order for that to take root and for the rain not to become RUN OFF, that we must break up the hard ground-otherwise the rain comes, but the ground does not absorb it and does not bear fruit-it just runs off. So I have been praying that the Lord would break up/plow up the hard ground. I want to be part of that....I am not asking for the easy way. I don't mind hard work. I don't mind putting my hand on the plow and working the ground so that it is ready for what God wants to do.
There has been a lot of plowing going on. Breaking up and making the ground ready...so that when it does come a deluge...it won't just be run off.
But this week, that thought became even more precious as I read in Luke 9:62 that "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Our lives are to be about the Plow as well. Allowing the Lord to break us up, but also being part of those who til the soil. And if we don't do this...we are not fit for the Kingdom. If we are lazy and not willing to be broken. If we are unwilling to do the work necessary to prepare the soil. If we spend our time looking back instead of plowing ahead. We are not fit for the Kingdom of God. NOT MY WORDS....HIS. We are to put our hand to the plow...break it up and not look back...but move forward.
My heart is to be a plow. Allowing the Lord to break up the fallow ground in me, but also tiling the soil and not looking back in the Kingdom.

And then I was thinking the Altar and the Plow go together.
The life of being a living sacrifice doesn't mind being broken nor does it mind working hard to break up what is hard. Our spiritual service of worship is to allow the Lord to break us and then to break up the hard ground. It is to sacrifice and put our hands to the plow and never look back. To conform us to His image and bear much fruit as we sacrifice ourselves and plow up the hard ground.
So I think I might be ready for the Altar AND the Plow....
neither seem like fun....sacrifice, brokenness, Hard work....yet, when it rains-much fruit will come and thus prove that I am His disciple and He will receive much glory.

Altar and Plow....just a thought....ALL FOR YOU