Notice the order: Take heed to yourself first. Make sure you’re cultivating a personal devotional life; that you’re a man or a woman of prayer. Make sure you’re one who is engaged in consistent communion with the Lord personally.

Abraham was a lover of God. On his way to the Promised Land, wherever he went, he built an altar. As he traveled, because the Lord prospered him more and more, his flocks began to increase. So he dug wells to ensure that his flocks were sufficiently watered.

When Abraham’s son, Isaac came on the scene, seeing his father's expansive flocks, he decided the key to his father’s success was digging wells. So Isaac dug many wells — but he built only one altar. Consequently, his wells were named Sitna and Esik, or ‘Strife’ and ‘Contention’.

When Isaac’s son, Jacob — the third generation from Abraham — appeared, he built no altars and dug no wells. Instead, he said, ‘The key to seeing the flock grow is ingenuity, creativity, and genetic engineering,’ (Genesis 30).

That’s what often happens: A man or woman loves God and from that love, there’s an overflow whereby the flock grows. Then the second generation says, ‘I too want to be in ministry and see a flock grow’ — so they copy the outward activity of the generation before them — but it only produces tension, strife, and agony. Why? Because they’re not altar builders.

Finally, the third generation comes along and says, ‘Programs — that’s the key. We’ll have excellent entertainment. We’ll have relevant, current messages which, although they aren’t necessarily Biblical, speak to the needs of the people.’ And it’s exciting for awhile, but it’s not sustaining. They have to try harder and harder in their Jacob mentality to keep everything going with creativity and ingenuity.

True ministry begins with an altar-building man or woman loving God and enjoying the Lord. All too often, however, the lover of God is followed by a well-digger — one who wants to see the flock watered, but who has lost the understanding of the altar and a personal, private passion for the Lord. The third generation, the program people, the Jacobs, then come on the scene and say, ‘We’re going to really wow the world with our creativity.’

I see this happening not only in churches, but in my own life as well. Quite frankly, I can go through all three generations in one day. I can start the morning as an altar-builder, a lover of God. Then, sometime around noon, I can become a well-digger saying, ‘Lord, I don’t have time to talk to You. I’ve got to water these sheep.’ As a result, in the evening, I find myself thinking, ‘Oh, no. My ministry’s slipping. I better do something creative and ingenious.’

What happened to Jacob? Finally, this clever heel-snatcher came to the end of his rope when he heard his estranged brother, Esau, was coming with four hundred men to meet him. After Jacob crossed a little creek called Jabok, he wrestled the Angel of the Lord and said, ‘I’m not going to let You go until You bless me,’ (Genesis 32:26). Talk about close contact and a restoration of intimacy! Jacob was no longer striping stakes; he was wrestling with God all night long.

In the morning, the Lord said, ‘Jacob you have prevailed. No longer will you be called Jacob, or, ‘Clever One’. You’ll now be called Israel, which means ‘Governed by God’, because at last you understand it’s staying close to Me; it’s wrestling with Me; it’s depending on Me that matters.’

I’ve seen peoples finally get to the place of being exhausted from ‘Jacob-ing’ it. They get back to the altar, back to saying, ‘Lord, we just want to know You.’ People like that get used by the Lord time after time as they touch people from the overflow of an ‘altared’ life.