«　WEEK 8　DAY 3　»

　　Gen. 12:7-8 And Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, To your seed I will give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him. And he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent…

　　Job 42:5 I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen You.

　　In Genesis 12:7 we see that the altar is based on God’s appearance… No one can offer himself to God unless he has first met God. Unless God has appeared to a man, he cannot offer his all to God. Consecration is not the result of man’s exhortation or persuasion but of God’s revelation. No one can voluntarily offer up all he has on the altar if God has not first appeared to him… However, when man meets God, consecration takes place spontaneously in his life. (CWWN, vol. 37, “The Life of the Altar and the Tent,” p. 89)

　　When we meet God, a radical change takes place in our life. We can no longer do what we did in the past. When we meet God Himself, we have the power to deny ourselves. The matter of denying one’s self ceases to be optional when we have met God. His appearance makes a person unable to go on by himself; it forces him to not live by himself anymore. God’s appearance brings with it inexhaustible power. Such an appearance will alter the whole course of a person’s life. For a Christian, the power to live for God is based on his vision of God.

　　The altar has its issue in the tent… From [Genesis 12:8] on, Abraham lived in God’s house—Bethel… He lived in a tent before, but God did not mention it. Not until he had built the altar does the Word of God bring the tent into view. A tent is something movable; it does not take root anywhere. Through the altar God deals with us; through the tent God deals with our possessions. At the altar Abraham offered up his all to God… Abraham still possessed cattle and sheep and many other things, but he had become a tent dweller. What was not consumed on the altar could only be kept in the tent. Here we see a principle. Everything we have should be placed on the altar. But there is still something left. These are the things that are for our own use. However, they are not ours; they are to be left in the tent. We have to remember that anything that has not passed the altar cannot even be in the tent. But not everything that has passed the altar is consumed… When we consecrate many things to God, He takes them and nothing is left behind. But God leaves some of the things offered on the altar for our own use. The things that have passed through the altar and are for our use can only be kept in the tent.

　　Some people ask, “If I give my all to God, do I have to sell all my possessions and dispose of all my money?”… We have a life to live before God, and we also have a life to live in the world. In our life before God everything must truly be on the altar, but for our life in the world we still have need of many material things. While we are living in the world, we need clothing, food, and a dwelling place. We ought to consecrate our all to God and live for Him alone; but if He says we may retain a certain thing, then we may retain it. Nevertheless, we must apply the principle of the tent to all the physical things that He permits us to retain, because they have been given back to us to meet our need in the world. If we do not need them, we should dispose of them. We may use them, but we must not be touched by them. We can have them or let them go; they can be given, and they can be taken away. This is the life of the tent.

　　May we learn this lesson. We dare not use anything that has not been placed on the altar, we may not take anything back from the altar, and what God gives back must be kept according to the principle of the tent. (CWWN, vol. 37, “The Life of the Altar and the Tent,” pp. 90, 92-93)

　　Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 37, ch. 16, “The Life of the Altar and the Tent”; CWWN, vol. 35, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” chs. 1-3, 5