Making a Place for God’s Presence
Chuck D. Pierce and Alemu Beeftu
Pierce and Beeftu begin this book by talking about the importance of altars not just in the Old Testament but also in the New Testament, and for us today. They begin with why we need to build an altar today. While altars were physical in the Bible, they do not have to be physical altars today for Christians. What’s important is the concept behind altars, the worship and offering that is offered to God.
In the next chapter, they spread the altar of God for salvation and revival. The trace much of what altars meant and how they were built from the patriarchs. Each altar had a Pacific meeting and was important to the worship of God for each individual in each place they went. This chapter did not easily connect the material about altars with the ideas of salvation and revival.
In the third chapter, they answer the question, “What is an altar of God?” They trace what kind of material were used to build altars, and what was sacrificed for offered on each kind. They cover three types of altars: ones built of stone, bronze, and gold. Each one was for a specific purpose and worship God with different offerings and sacrifices.
The authors cover ten ways we could ruin the altar of God in the fourth chapter. It’s not that we want to ruin God’s altar, that we need to know what attitudes and postures was taken worship that could ruin our offering to God. In chapter 5, the authors describe how to overthrow the false altars remains in our lives. They give strategies for destroying his altars and keeping them from destroying our worship.
Chapter 6, the authors moved to talk about the altar of worship and how we can offer our sacrifices of various kinds to the Lord. They talk about five offerings we can offer in worship. Chapter 7 gives strategies on how to make our altar of worship a priority before the Lord. If we don’t make worship a priority in our lives, we are in danger of destroying our altar of worship. The authors give us strategies to prioritize worship.
In Chapter 8, Pierce and Beeftu point out the important of keeping our altar fire burning. The fire on the altar of incense in the temple must be kept burning all the time. It represented God’s presence among His people. In the same way, we must keep the altar fire burning strong. We must keep the Lord first and worship Him all the time.
If we have lost our way, we can go back and rebuild the altar worship. The authors tell us how to do this in Chapter 9. Chapter 10, the authors help us with a prayer to return the altar fire to our lives and we might experience revival and renewal want them. Chapter 11 helps us to understand God’s kingdom. It is characterized my love, God’s power, God’s light of truth, amongst other attributes.
Chapter 12 is a call for us to rekindle the prayer fire in our lives. The authors talk about prayer and its importance for every Christian every day. They continue to talk about your prayer life in chapter 13 as they go through the Bible and talk about bold prayers. We can boldly go before God’s throne every day in our prayers.
In the final chapter, the authors complete the book by charging the reader to keep the fire burning. It’s an every day discipline for us to enter into God’s presence and present our offerings and sacrifices of praise. We must remember what the Bible says about the fires on altars of the Old Testament to the Lord.
This is a great book for studying the biblical theology of altars and why they matter to us today. However, it was not what I thought he would be about. I realize “altar” is in the title, but I was looking at the subject of the presence of God in the subtitle. Pierce and Beeftu do a good job of biblical theology throughout the book, but I found some of their movements from concept to concept from the text to application. Sometimes, the connections are stretched to their limit. I recommend this book for those studying biblical theology on the topics presented in the book. But this is not the book for you if you’re looking to study the presence of God in the Bible or for application to your life.
