The First Altar: The Heart

God's job is to send the fire. Our job is to build the altar.

Duncan Campbell put it plainly: revival comes when the fire of God falls on the altar of the heart, the home, the church, and the region. These are the concentric circles. And the New England Revival Covenant is, at its core, a strategy for building the altar in each of those domains.

But there is no point starting with the region. No point starting with the church, or even the family. There is really only one place we can begin — our own hearts. Because unlike the family, unlike the church, unlike the region, the heart is the one place we actually have authority to surrender.

So what is the altar of the heart?

Psalm 86. David prays: Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

Pause on that. An undivided heart.

David asked for it. Which means he probably didn't have it. But he wanted it.

We know what divided hearts feel like. Divided attention. Divided devotion. Divided agendas — ours and God's running in parallel, rarely converging. Surrender is not automatic. Whole-heartedness costs something. Even Jesus had to wrestle his own independent will to the ground in Gethsemane. 

But God is looking for whole-heartedness and for surrender. When Abraham was willing on Mt. Moriah to hold nothing back, it touched something deep in the Lord. He wanted God even more than he wanted God’s blessings, promises, and…yes…even Isaac.

The eyes of the Lord range to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward him (2 Chronicles 16:9). Blessed are the pure in heart — they will see God. If our greatest desire is for God himself, we can be sure he will grant it.

What God is searching for, before he can trust a heart with the heat of his presence, is this: is it divided, or is it whole? Wholly devoted? Completely surrendered?

But let’s be honest. Most of our hearts are not undivided.

And so David teaches us to pray for it. To ask. Give me an undivided heart, Lord. When we pray this, and truly mean it, we give the Spirit permission to do what only the Spirit can do — surface the impurities, expose the idols and mixed motives that run alongside our love for God. And then as Paul says in Romans 8, by the Spirit, we can put to death the desires of the flesh…and live.

When our hearts are surrendered, we become the first place the fire of God can fall. We become the epicenters of the dynamic that expands to become revival.

Our hearts are the first altar. The place revival must necessarily begin.

Rev. Greg Johnson
Director, Revive New England