Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

Exodus chapter 27, verse 1.

You shall make the altar of acacia wood five cubits long and five cubits broad.

The altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits.

Now, what's interesting about this verse, along with all these

verses in Exodus chapter 27, is they involve specific instructions for the construction of the

tabernacle where God would meet with his people. So what we see, I mean, down to this should be five cubits long,

five cubits broad, the altar should be square, heights shall be three cubits. And so we see this

in all these different specific ways. And I'm guessing as we hear verses like this, we read through

chapters like this in the Bible, we're tempted to think,

okay, what does this have to do with my life? Because obviously, we know, based on the new covenant,

that we're not supposed to, we don't need to build a tabernacle like this. So what does this have

to do with us? What does this have to teach us? And this is where I want to encourage us,

this has so much to teach us. This is God prescribing, down to the detail, how many cubits,

what type of wood should be used in construction in this way? Because God is serious about how he is to be worshipped,

about how he is to be approached.

Now, it's not by any means the exact same when we get into the New Testament,

but just think about personal communion with God. Think about worship gatherings

with the church and realize we don't have the freedom to just worship God however we want

on our own terms in a sense. No, God takes seriously how we worship him and he tells us how we should

worship him. So we don't do some of the things we do in our church gatherings just because we

decided it was a good idea. Like the proclamation of the word, the preaching of God's word

...