The Altar of Mount Moriah

UV 1749/10000 The Altar on Mount Moriah



And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
Genesis 22 v 14


God provides as this is of the essence of His nature. He has provided in the Earth’s nature, alone among all planets to this date, for the food, drink and shelter of all manner of creatures. But He has a special dispensation for mankind and an even more specific dispensation for those among mankind who love Him, trust Him, fear Him enough not to love evil. Yes, we have difficulties galore to surmount in our lives but the Lord is present in our midst as Jehovahjireh, my Provider. He is personal and specific in His timely and gracious provision to each of us according to our need. He provides according to His ability which is unlimited or infinite. We need not despair that Economics teaches us that human wants are unlimited for God’s ability and willingness to provide in response to our faith is also unlimited.

The seed for provision is supplied either in the spirit, physical or intellectual realms. Abraham was supplied the faith to reply to his son that “the Lord will provide the lamb for the sacrifice they had prepared themselves to do unto the Lord.” He prepared his tools, a knife and firewood and transport. Those words and his faithful and trusting as well as courageous actions to take his lone son of promise, born to his wife long past the child bearing age in obedience to the testing command of the Lord. Alas, for His Son the Jehovah allowed Him to not just pass a test but to go the whole tortuous way up to Golgotha or Calvary. The sheep that was caught in a bush by its horns getting trapped in it is a forerunner of the sacrifice of the only Son of God. Most of Jesus’ s miracles on earth are also manifestations of the “Jireh” aspect of godhead like His multiplying the few loaves of bread and fish or turning water into the best wine in the marriage feast at Cana. God does not want our lives to be a famine but a feast of joy, sufficiency if not abundance and celebration.

Each of us has had a “Mount Moriah” experience, a mount meaning some great need followed by our expressing words that become the seed of faith and our eyes beholding the provision of the Lord. If we take God at His Word, He takes us at our words. Our words become the seed for our need to be fulfilled by the Lord. After receiving the provision, whether by openly miraculous means or by a hidden miracle, we too like Abraham should erect an altar in the spirit before the Lord to worship Him right though our lives for this manifestation of His love, care and grace. The fathers of faith under the Old Covenant erected altars at the very site of their Moriah experience so that it would remind them and their generations of the goodness and kindness of the Lord. These altars were the milestones in their walk or journey back to God. If Abraham had indeed been allowed to sacrifice his son Isaac, it would have been a millstone around his life and the life of his wife Sarah. Their lives would have ended in tears and sorrow. But the Lord turned the millstone into a milestone to mark their leap of faith. An altar is writing in stone our gratitude and adoration for the Lord. Every time He alters our lives by His miraculous intervention of His provision, we should build an alter in the spirit inside the very heart of the temple of our own bodies. We should always keep the candles burning on these spiritual altars and a constant epiphany keeps rising to the Lord who provides. Instead of asking our Lord for the next need, let us thank Him for satisfying our last.
Prateep V Philip