The One Year Bible - Day 218

In cryptic crosswords, there are 'signpost' words, words that suggest what sort of clue this is. The same must be true to a certain extent in the Bible. We read that the Israelites needed to "rebuild" the altar of God before they were able to make sacrifices to Him. This must be a analogy (again) about how much preparation we need sometimes in a church setting to put in place the foundations of a genuine place of worship (not musical). What is the altar and what does it represent? I think it relates to purity and righteousness, surely the only way we could rightly come before God. But wait, you might argue that we are never righteous so how is this possible? Well firstly you had to be clean before you could sacrifice but also, the altar was where you laid your sacrifices. What else would result in the place where we sacrifice things in our lives that need to be given over to God? Purity/holiness/righteousness, whatever you want to call it. How do we build this in our churches? By recognising places where we are acting unrighteously and cleaning these things. Is it because our prayer life is lacking or we don't study the Bible enough? Is it because we are more religious than loving or the other way round?