JANUARY 17 "GO BACK TO THE ALTAR YOU BUILT!"

We know that the 1st altar is built on man's own initiation. It's interesting to see God now using a good thing. He tells Jacob go back to Bethel and build an Altar there. God understands "altars" are a good thing! A modern day name for an altar, a secular name for an altar is...."memorial". A memorial is a secular altar. It is a lesson, a remembrance in life that we never want to forget. However life's lessons should have God involved...I digress, so God encourages Jacob to go back, back to the place God met him. This proves that there are times in a believers life that their faith is dimming, struggling  and puttering away and God says, these altars, they are a good thing, go back to them. Build them and remember where I have met you and what I have done for you in the past and let that memorial, spiritual reference point, ALTAR, encourage you into the future. Notice verse 16 "Then they moved on from Bethel".   God brought Jacob back here for the sole purpose of a reference point for him and then says, "now let's move on". We cannot stay and worship at our altars forever, because if we do, the inverse will happen, it will not encourage but depress us (those were the days....). We must reference, remember and then move on to the future believing to build new altars and have new conquests for God.

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