After the people entered the Land, we see again this week that they were busy building memorials and altars:
Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses—an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings. (Joshua 8:30-31).
They had already built memorials to God's miracle as they crossed the Jordan, to their disobedience at the city of Ai, and their subsequent victory there after their obedience. This time they were putting down "worship roots" by building an altar as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had done in the Land centuries before the people's return.
Notice how they where to build the altar. They were only to use "uncut stones on which no iron tool had been used." Why was that? It was so the people would not get the sense that they were building God an altar for His benefit. They weren't to refine, decorate, adorn it according to their taste. This altar was to be one of and for His work, using the stones just as God had created them to build something for their benefit. It was on that altar that they were to worship him with "burnt and fellowship offerings."
The priests were not to eat a burnt offering but it was to be totally consumed by fire. Burnt offerings on that altar were a sacrifice for God and God alone to signify that what they had accomplished by entering the Land was for God's purposes and not their own. However, the fellowship offerings were sacrifices of thanksgiving that the people and the priests ate with joy and gladness.
Are you doing what you do for God as you express your purpose and creativity? Are you surrendering and committing your time and effort to Him? You have a purpose because God has something He wants to accomplish through you. It is for Him and because of Him. You will bless and benefit others but that's not the primary reason you function in creative purpose. You do so because it is God's will, nothing more or less. You are to be a busy builder but always building for the right reason, which is to do the work God has assigned that only you can do.
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