Before the Altar part 5

Do I treat the altar where I worship as though a sanctuary? Is it His sanctuary? Am I doing His will in His sanctuary, or am I doing something to elevate me, although at the time it may not seem so. Do I treat it as precious? (Leviticus 19:30) Do I treat Him as though His way is what I wish to follow and that He truly is a great God? (Psalms 77:13) How do I think of His house? (Psalms 84:4) Because if I think of the church as just church and put God as an afterthought, without considering if He is there or praying to Him about His service, then church is just wood and nails with a roof on top, support beam,s on top of walls sitting on a slab or a raised level floor. Nothing holy, nothing happy. It becomes a tool to make me feel good about completing a check list, that I do this or go there or sing here or associate with this group or that group instead of jogging or going to the ball games like some do on Sunday mornings. Unless my sole purpose exists for praying and honoring Him (Isaiah 56:7) and sharing Him with everyone (Hebrews 10:25), church means nothing. Unless I am lifting others up and demonstrating His life and love to everyone I come in contact with, and unless the whole meaning behind going before is altar is so that I can be like Him and that He can teach me how to walk and talk in His light then all I do is meaningless. I am no longer the living sacrifice that Paul tells me to be in Romans 12:1. I am merely going through the motions of what it means to be a Christian. I am not a sacrifice to Him, but a shadow of His created, a display of His handiwork like a block of wood. I do things not Christ's way but my way. If I do not understand that regardless of what I do, if my heart is not to serve Him rather than what I get out of service, then I am totally selfish. I need Job's attitude in Job 10:2,9,15, to tell God not to condemn me but to see me as I am and show me His mercy. Oh, how I long for His steady hand that Job longed for in Job 13:21. How I long to have a relationship with Him that is pure, yet one in which I can kneel at His feet and He lifts me up as His daughter! How I pray for that! How I pray to rely on Him and not care about what my friends and family think. (Job 16:20) It doesn't matter to me what my enemies think, or really what people I don't know think of me. What matters are my friends and family and their opinions. And it is that which I must fight to realize that God is the only one I should fear, the only one I should care about whether I hurt or not, realizing that if I do harm to my fellow man I am indeed hurting God. God will same me from those that hurt me. (Psalms 3:1,2,7) and He will hear my call. (Psalms 4:1) He knows when I am suffering, either from illness or physical hurt, or from pain caused by others or my own selfishness. He will give me wisdom. (Psalms 5:8, Psalms 7:1,2,6,7) He considers me always when I come before the altar with my requests, when I am on my knees desiring His infinite compassion (Psalms 9:13,14) and when I am angry at what appears to be His slowness of response. (Psalms 10:1,12,15). He is listening, and considering His response in a timely fashion and He knows when I come to the altar with a pure heart that trusts and obeys Him (Psalms 16:1, Psalms 17:1, 2, 6-9,13,14). He knows my pleas and what kind of heart they are coming from.