Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 20: The Altar of Resurrection (Easter Sunday)

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By Rev. Todd R. Lattig[i]

Read Mark 16:1–8

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I will not die; instead, I will live to tell what the LORD has done.” (Psalm 118:17 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A large rectangular stone altar sits centered in a modern open-air structure, visibly cracked down the middle. The surface is bare, with no cloth or objects. In the distance, a muted city skyline rises under an overcast sky. The atmosphere is subdued, emphasizing fracture, exposure, and the instability of what once appeared solid.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Resurrection” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

It begins in the quiet aftermath of certainty. The stone has been set. The tomb has been sealed. The system has done its work, and everything appears exactly as it should be. Death has the final word—or so it seems.

Some women come to the tomb carrying spices, not expectation. They are not looking for resurrection, but preparing for burial. Even now, they are moving within the logic of what has already been decided.

And then everything breaks.

The stone is already rolled away. The body is not where it should be. A message is given—clear, direct, impossible to misunderstand. He is not here. He has been raised. And yet, the response is not triumph. It is fear.

They said nothing… because they were afraid.

This is where Mark ends. No appearances. No resolution. No restored certainty. Just an empty tomb, a message that disrupts everything, and witnesses who cannot yet bring themselves to speak.

Because resurrection does not arrive as comfort. It arrives as disruption.

It breaks the certainty that death had secured. It refuses the finality that systems had enforced. It does not fit within expectation, control, or explanation. It does not settle neatly into belief. It unsettles it.

The altar was set. The stone was sealed. And still… it did not hold.

This is the reversal of everything that came before. On Friday, violence was justified through process. On Saturday, certainty settled through silence. And on Sunday, both are undone—not through force, not through argument, but through something no system could anticipate or contain.

Life where death had been declared final. And yet, even here, the story does not resolve cleanly.

Because the first witnesses do not proclaim it. They do not run forward with clarity and conviction. They run in fear, carrying the weight of something they do not yet understand. The truth has been revealed, but it has not yet been integrated.

And if we are honest, we recognize this too.

We want resurrection to feel like certainty restored. We want clarity, assurance, and resolution. We want something we can name, explain, and hold onto without tension.

But that is not how Mark tells it.

Resurrection does not erase mystery. It deepens it. It does not give control back. It removes it. It does not answer every question. It creates new ones.

And it asks something of us.

Not immediate understanding. Not perfect belief. Not even certainty.

Presence.

Because the question Easter leaves us with is not simply whether Christ is risen. It is what we will do in response to a truth that disrupts everything we thought was final.

The women ran. They said nothing, because they were afraid. And the story does not tell us what happens next.

Which means the silence is not the end. It is the space where we are now standing.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Resurrection does not restore certainty—it disrupts it.

PRAYER
God, meet us in the places where resurrection unsettles more than it comforts. When we are faced with what we do not understand, give us courage to remain present. When fear holds our voice, stay with us in the silence. And when new life breaks through what we thought was final, lead us forward—not with certainty, but with trust. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 19: The Altar of Certainty (Holy Saturday)

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Read Matthew 27:57–66

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“You have taken away my companions and loved ones. Darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88:18 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A cracked stone altar sits centered in a modern open-air structure, with a distant city skyline in the background. The lighting is muted and overcast, and the fracture running through the altar draws focus, suggesting broken foundations and the exposure of what has been built.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Certainty” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 19: The Altar of Certainty. Holy Saturday is quiet. Not peaceful, not resolved—just quiet. It is the kind of quiet that settles in after something has ended, when there is nothing left to do and nowhere left to go. It is the kind of quiet that feels final.

Jesus is in the tomb. The stone is set. The work of Friday appears complete.

And the disciples? They are nowhere to be found. The ones who followed, who heard, who said they would stay—none of them are at the tomb. They may be questioning what has happened—despite being given the explanations by Christ—but they are not standing watch. They are not resisting the finality of it.

They may not be at the tomb… but the tomb is where they are stuck.

Not out of malice or indifference, but out of fear, grief, and disorientation. It is a deeply human response—and yet, it leaves something behind. It leaves a vacuum.

Because while they are absent, the system is not.

The authorities return to Pilate, not to revisit the decision, but to reinforce it. They remember what others have forgotten. They anticipate what others no longer expect. They ask for the tomb to be secured—not because they believe, but because they want certainty.

So the stone is sealed. A guard is posted. The outcome is protected. What was done on Friday is now made official on Saturday.

The tomb wasn’t just sealed by authorities. It was left unchallenged by everyone else.

And in that absence, certainty settles in. Not because it has been proven, and not because it is true, but because no one remains to question it. Sometimes certainty does not need to be established. It only needs to be left alone.

This is the quieter danger—not violence, not confrontation, not even deception, but the slow, steady acceptance of what appears final.

And if we are honest, we know this space. The moments after the decision has been made, after the outcome has been declared, when speaking up feels pointless and hope feels unrealistic. When stepping forward feels too costly, we step back. We go quiet. We tell ourselves there is nothing left to do.

And in that silence, things settle that were never meant to.

Holy Saturday is not just about what was done to Jesus. It is about what happens when those who know the story go still—when truth is not denied, but simply not spoken, and when presence gives way to absence.

Not because people stopped caring. But because they stopped showing up. And in that space, the altar of certainty takes hold.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Certainty often settles where truth is left unspoken.

PRAYER
God, meet us in the quiet places where we have stepped back and gone silent. In our fear, our grief, and our uncertainty, draw us near again. Give us courage to remain present when it would be easier to disappear, and to trust that even in silence, You are still at work. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 18: The Altar of Violence (Good Friday)

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Read Luke 23:13-25

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.” (Colossians 2:15 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A cracked stone altar sits centered in a modern open-air structure with a distant city skyline beyond. Overlaid text reads “Altar Audit: A New Lenten Devotion Series” and “The Altar of Violence,” reinforcing the theme of broken foundations and examined allegiances.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Violence” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 18: The Altar of Violence. Good Friday doesn’t begin with chaos. It begins with a moment that almost feels controlled—measured, even reasonable. Leaders are gathered. Questions are asked. A decision is forming. If you didn’t know the subplot or how the story ends, you might mistake what is happening for justice at work.

But something is off.

Religious leaders want Jesus gone. Political authority does not find a charge that holds. The crowd is stirred, agitated, insistent. And yet, despite all of that tension, what unfolds is not chaos—it is process. Charges are brought, hearings are held, decisions are made in the open, and responsibility is spread so thin that no single person has to carry it.This is not simply the story of a crucifixion. This is violence justified through process—ordered, structured, and made to appear necessary. No one owns it, and yet everyone enables it.

Pilate stands at the center of it, not as a confused bystander (as the Gospel of John often presents him), but as a governor who understands exactly what is happening. Historically, he was known for brutality, not hesitation. This is not a moment of moral paralysis. It is a moment of political calculation. He does not need Jesus to be guilty. He needs the situation to be resolved. Order must be maintained. Unrest must be avoided. Position must be protected.

So the process unfolds. Questions are asked. Options are presented. The crowd is given a voice. And in the end, the outcome aligns exactly with what the system requires. Pilate does not fail to stop the violence—he authorizes it. What appears to be reluctance is not innocence. It is optics.

And that is what makes this moment so dangerous—not just then, but now.

Because violence rarely begins with hatred. It begins with permission. It becomes acceptable when it is legal, when it follows procedure, when it is demanded loudly enough, and when it serves a purpose that feels necessary. It becomes acceptable when the alternative feels too costly, and when truth is acknowledged… and then quietly set aside.

Jesus is not executed because the truth is unclear. Jesus is executed because the outcome has already been decided. The truth was never the point. Control was.

Religion identifies the threat, political power structures the solution, and the crowd supplies the momentum. Together, they create something none of them would fully claim on their own—a collaboration. Not a rogue act, not a misunderstanding, not a tragedy alone, but a system doing exactly what it was designed to do.

And if we are honest, that pattern has not disappeared. Harm is still justified as necessary. Decisions are still made “for stability.” Truth is still recognized in private and ignored in public. Systems still protect themselves first, and responsibility is still diffused until no one feels accountable for what is done.

And most often, no one stands up and says, “This is wrong, and I will stop it.” Instead, we hear familiar echoes: “I wash my hands.” “Give them what they want.” “It’s better this way.”

No one has to hate for violence to happen. They only have to allow it.

Good Friday does not just reveal what was done to Jesus. It reveals how easily a world—any world—can participate in harm while believing it is simply doing what must be done. And in that revelation, the altar stands before us—not in ancient Jerusalem, but here.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Violence is most dangerous when it looks justified.

PRAYER
God, expose the places where we mistake process for righteousness and control for justice. Give us the courage to recognize truth, and the strength not to turn away from it when it costs us something. Where we are tempted to remain silent, speak through us. Where we are complicit, confront us. Lead us away from every altar that demands harm and toward the way of Christ. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 17: The Altar of Power

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Read John 13:1–17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant.” (Luke 22:26 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A dimly lit upper room scene shows a central figure kneeling low on the floor, washing another’s feet while others sit elevated around the room, the warm lamplight emphasizing the stark reversal of expected roles and authority.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Power” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 17: The Altar of Power. Power, as the world understands it, is not complicated. It is structured, ordered, and visible. There are those above and those below, those who lead and those who follow, those who command and those who obey. In the world of Jesus and the disciples, that structure was not questioned—it was assumed. A teacher stood above disciples. A master stood above servants. Everyone knew their place. No one beneath washed the feet of those above.

Foot washing belonged to the lowest position in the room. It was the task reserved for the one with the least status, the least authority, the least dignity in the eyes of the world. It was not symbolic or ceremonial. It was menial, embodied, and unmistakably clear. And then Jesus stands up.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus removes the outer garment. That detail matters. In that moment, Jesus lays aside the visible markers of authority and assumes the posture of someone beneath everyone else in the room. This is not simply an act of humility. It is a movement into the lowest position available. Jesus does not just serve. Jesus takes the place of a slave.

When Jesus comes to Peter, the tension surfaces immediately. Peter refuses. Not quietly or politely, but definitively: “You will never wash my feet.” This is not humility. It is protest. Peter is not lowering himself; he is trying to keep Jesus elevated. He is defending a world where teachers remain above students and masters remain above servants. He is protecting the structure.

Jesus refuses.

“Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

There is no softening in that statement. No compromise, no adjustment, no attempt to ease Peter’s discomfort. Jesus draws a boundary. If Peter cannot receive this—if Peter cannot accept a Christ who kneels, who descends, who refuses to remain above—then Peter does not yet understand what it means to belong to him. Peter is not rejecting service. He is rejecting a Savior who will not stay in the place the world says a Savior should occupy.

This is where the meaning of the moment sharpens. Jesus is not modeling a better version of leadership within the existing system. Jesus is not demonstrating kindness as an added virtue. Jesus is exposing the system itself and refusing to participate in it. The world builds power by climbing higher, securing position, and maintaining distance. Jesus reveals power by going lower, by removing what marks status, and by closing the distance entirely.

Jesus removes everything the world uses to measure power… and kneels.

That movement is not symbolic. It is revelatory. It shows that what we call power may not be power at all, and what we dismiss as weakness may be the very place where the truth of God is made known. This is why the moment unsettles us. We are far more comfortable with a Jesus who serves than a Jesus who dismantles. We can admire humility while still preserving hierarchy. We can speak about servant leadership while continuing to protect position, status, and control.

That is where this turns toward us. We still live within systems that depend on knowing our place. We still measure influence, authority, and worth in ways that mirror the world more than the God’s Kingdom. We still resist the idea that power could look like descent instead of ascent. And, like Peter, we often call that resistance reverence. We say we are honoring Christ, when what we are really doing is asking Christ to remain above us in ways that feel safer, clearer, and easier to manage.

Jesus does not accept that version of faith.

“Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

The invitation is not to admire what Jesus does. It is to receive it. It is to allow the collapse of everything we thought power was supposed to be, and to follow Christ into a way of being that no longer depends on staying above anyone else. In the kingdom of God, power is not proven by who stands above. It is revealed by who is willing to kneel.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
If we need Christ to remain above us, we may not yet understand the power Christ reveals.

PRAYER
God, unsettle our assumptions about power. Reveal where we have confused position with faithfulness and authority with truth. Teach us to receive the humility of Christ not as an idea but as a way of life. Give us the courage to follow, even when it dismantles what we thought power was supposed to be. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 16: The Altar of Betrayal

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Read Matthew 26:14–16

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.” (Psalm 41:9 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A cracked stone altar sits in an open architectural space overlooking a distant city skyline, under muted gray skies, symbolizing fracture, exposure, and the hidden structures behind what appears stable.
Image: AI-generated using Adobe Firefly and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “ALTAR AUDIT: A New Lenten Devotion Series” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 16: The Altar of Betrayal. Not all decisions are made out in the open. Some take shape quietly, in conversations that never make the record, in tensions that linger just beneath the surface. By the time something finally happens, the conditions have already been set.

Holy Week is full of those moments. Judas’ act of betrayal is one of them—and it changes everything.

We know this story, or at least we think we do…

Judas becomes the easy answer—the betrayer, the villain, the one who sold Jesus for silver. But the Gospels do not begin there, and if we begin there, we have already stepped away from what the text is actually doing. “Judas” is not a strange or cursed name. It is Judah, a common name, a shared identity. Over time, the Church has taken that name and turned it into a symbol of ultimate betrayal. Not just a person remembered, but a category created—a warning label. That move is not neutral. It creates distance. It allows us to point and say, “That is not us,” without ever asking how close the story actually comes.

The Gospels do not present a group of disciples who all understood Jesus while one stood apart. They show a community wrestling, misunderstanding, arguing, and resisting. They debated who would be greatest. They pushed back when Jesus spoke of suffering. They followed, yes, but not always with clarity and not always with courage. Judas is not introduced as the outsider. Judas is one of them.

And then the text tells us something both simple and unsettling. Judas went to the religious leaders. No summons. No recorded coercion. No dramatic recruitment. He went. And yet, the deeper question remains: how did he know where to go? By this point, the Gospels are clear that the leadership had already begun considering how to remove Jesus. Not publicly, not recklessly, but deliberately and quietly. The system was already in motion.

So we hold both truths at once: Judas went to them, and the system was already waiting to receive him.

No one had to explicitly tell Judas. He already knew exactly where to go.

This is how power often works. It does not always issue commands; it creates conditions. It signals what will be rewarded and makes certain actions thinkable long before they are taken. It maintains distance while leaving the door open.Someone close enough to see both sides—close enough to feel the tension—steps through it.

One person crosses the threshold. And it only takes one.

From that moment, everything begins to move. Access is granted. Timing is set. The arrest becomes possible. Once the machinery turns, others are caught in its wake. Peter, who swore loyalty, denies. The others scatter. Leaders justify. Authorities comply. The crowd follows. The chain of unintended consequences unfolds, pulling even the strongest voices into actions they never imagined they would take.

Judas is not the whole problem. Judas is the turning point.

Because it is easier to isolate betrayal in one person than to recognize the conditions that made it possible. It is easier to name a villain than to examine the system. It is easier to condemn Judas than to ask how often we have participated in quieter versions of the same thing. Systems still reward what they will not openly request. Truth still becomes inconvenient. Insiders still know exactly where to go when following Christ begins to cost too much.

We do not need silver. We only need a moment where allegiance becomes negotiable.

And here is the hardest truth of all. By turning Judas into a caricature, we have not protected the story—we have distorted it. We have made betrayal something distant, something obvious, something we would never do. In doing so, we have avoided seeing how close it actually is.

Judas betrayed Jesus.

But when we reduce him to less than human, when we refuse to see ourselves in the same circle, and when we pretend we would have stood firm while others faltered, we betray them both.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Betrayal begins long before the act—when following Christ becomes something we are willing to negotiate.

PRAYER
God, search us where we are most certain of ourselves. Reveal where our allegiance has become conditional, where comfort has replaced courage, and where we have chosen distance over truth. Give us the grace to remain faithful when it costs us, and the honesty to see ourselves clearly in the story. Amen.

]Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 15: The Altar of Control

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Read Mark 12:13–17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.” (John 11:48 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A large stone altar sits centered in a modern open courtyard, split by a deep crack running through its middle. The surrounding architecture is symmetrical and still, with a distant city skyline blurred in gray light. Overlaid text reads “ALTAR AUDIT: A New Lenten Devotion Series” and “The Altar of Control,” with “Life-Giving Water Devotions” at the bottom. The atmosphere is cold and controlled, suggesting fractured trust beneath structured systems.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Control” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 15: The Altar of Control. It begins like so many conversations do—with a question that seems reasonable enough on the surface. There is no raised voice, no visible confrontation, just a moment offered in public, shaped carefully, placed precisely where it will be heard.

But something is off.

The tone is measured. The setting is controlled. The words are familiar. And yet beneath it all, there is a sense that the answer matters less than what the answer will produce.

Jesus is standing in that space when the question comes: “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

It sounds simple. It is anything but.

Say yes, and you are aligned with empire. Say no, and you are marked as a threat to it. Either way, the outcome has already been calculated. The question is not seeking truth. It is seeking control.

This is where the altar reveals itself.

The altar of control is built when truth is no longer the goal—only outcome.

The brilliance of the trap is how normal it sounds. It does not announce itself as manipulation. It presents as discernment. It uses language that feels faithful, responsible, even necessary. But underneath, the aim is not understanding—it is positioning, exposure, and leverage.

Not every question is asked in good faith.

And Jesus refuses to answer on those terms.

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”

This is not an endorsement of empire. It is not a command to compliance. It is a refusal to be trapped inside a false framework. The question assumes divided loyalties that can be neatly sorted and controlled. Jesus exposes the assumption itself.

You cannot reduce faithfulness to a category that can be managed. You cannot contain God within the boundaries of political convenience. You cannot force truth into a system designed to protect itself.

In fact, here’s a Biblical interpretive hack: Jesus returns question with question—“Whose image is on this?” Then, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” No one could deny the words, but the weight underneath them was equally undeniable. What is Caesar’s, exactly? Not much in the grand scheme of things. What is God’s? Everything—including what Caesar claims.

And just like that, the trap collapses.

But the instinct behind it does not.

Because the altar of control is not confined to one group, one system, or one moment. It appears anywhere truth becomes secondary to outcome, anywhere questions are shaped not to learn, but to corner.

We know this instinct.

Where we ask questions to trap, not learn.
Where we debate to win, not discern.
Where we use Scripture to control, not reveal.

It shows up in religious spaces. It shows up in political spaces. It shows up in conversations where the goal is no longer understanding, but victory—where the outcome matters more than the truth itself.

And often, it is justified.

In John’s Gospel, the reasoning is made explicit: better to control the situation than to risk losing everything. Better to contain the disruption than to let it spread. Control is framed as wisdom. Preservation is framed as necessity.

That is how the altar is built.

Not through open rebellion, but through careful justification. Not through obvious corruption, but through quiet calculation. Not through abandoning faith, but through reshaping it into something manageable.

And Jesus will not participate in that.

Jesus does not play the game. Jesus does not accept the premise. Jesus does not allow truth to be reduced to something that can be leveraged for advantage.

Instead, Jesus reveals something deeper: that what belongs to God cannot be negotiated, controlled, or contained by the systems we build.

Which brings the question back to us.

Are we seeking truth…or control?

Because the difference is not always visible at first. It often sounds the same. It often feels the same. It often even uses the same words.

But one leads to surrender.
The other leads to power.

And only one of those leads to God.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The altar of control is built wherever truth is shaped to secure outcomes instead of reveal God.

PRAYER
God, expose the places where I seek control more than truth. Where I have shaped questions to protect my own outcomes, bring honesty. Where I have used your word to manage rather than listen, bring humility. Teach me to seek what is true, even when it unsettles what I would rather keep. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 14: The Altar of Profit

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Read Mark 11:15–19

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:7 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A large stone altar sits centered in a modern open courtyard, split by a deep crack running through its middle. The surrounding architecture is clean and symmetrical, with a distant city skyline blurred in gray light. Overlaid text reads “ALTAR AUDIT: A New Lenten Devotion Series” and “The Altar of Profit,” with “Life-Giving Water Devotions” at the bottom. The atmosphere is cold, still, and fractured, symbolizing the breaking of trusted systems.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Profit” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 14: The Altar of Profit.The noise of Palm Sunday has not quite faded yet. The crowds have thinned, but the energy lingers—the sense that something important has begun, that something is about to happen. Jesus enters the Temple in that space between celebration and outcome, where expectation still hangs in the air.

And then everything shifts.

Tables are overturned, coins scatter, and animals are driven out. The disruption is physical, violent, threatening, and immediate—not symbolic or abstract. In a crowded Temple under watchful authority, this was not a safe act. By ordinary standards, it would look foolish. Foolish by worldly standards…faithful by God’s.

It is easy to misread this moment as anger at commerce itself, but that misses the point. The Temple required money. Pilgrims needed currency exchange, and sacrifices required animals. This system had long existed and was necessary for participation in worship. Jesus and the disciples would have navigated that reality.

So this is not outrage at the presence of money. This is judgment on what the system had become.

“My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations… but you have made it a den of robbers.” A den of robbers is not where robbery happens; it is where robbers retreat. It is where what has been taken is protected, where exploitation is shielded from consequence. It is a place that feels safe—not for the vulnerable, but for those who benefit from the system as it stands.

That is the problem.

The Temple still functioned. Worship still happened. People still gathered. Nothing on the surface suggested failure. But underneath, something had shifted. A system that once served access to God had become a system that shielded injustice. It had become embedded, normalized, and—most dangerously—protected.

Because it worked.

It worked for those who benefited. It worked for those in power. It worked well enough that no one had to ask whether it was still faithful.

And that is what Jesus refuses.

Jesus does not disrupt the system because it exists. Jesus disrupts it because it has become untouchable, because what once served God had begun to serve itself, and because what should have opened the way had begun to control it.

This is not a gentle correction. It is a decisive refusal.

Not here. Not like this. Not in the name of God.

This is where the altar reveals itself.

The altar of profit is not built when money is present. It is built when systems that exploit are allowed to stand because they are useful, familiar, or beneficial—and are protected because they work for the ones in power. It is built when access is shaped by what someone can give, when belonging is quietly filtered, and when some move freely while others encounter barriers that were never meant to exist.

And most often, it goes unchallenged.

Because it works.

We are not distant from this. We inherit systems, participate in them, and benefit from them in ways we may not always recognize. Over time, what is familiar becomes unquestioned, and what is unquestioned becomes defended—not because we intend harm, but because disruption feels costly.

Because overturning tables always does.

But the gospel does not preserve what is comfortable if it is no longer faithful. Jesus does not protect systems simply because they are established. Jesus walks into the center of what we assume is holy and reveals what it has become, not only with words, but with action.

Which leaves us with a question that cannot be avoided:

What do we defend because it works…

and what might Christ overturn if Christ walked into it?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The altar of profit stands wherever exploitation is protected because it benefits those in power.

PRAYER
God, give me the clarity to see what I have accepted without question. Where I have benefited from what is not faithful, bring truth to light. Where I have defended what should be examined, give me courage to let it go. Lead me into a faith that reflects your justice, not my comfort. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Holy Week Series, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 13: The Altar of Popularity

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Read Luke 19:28–40

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Then the Pharisees said to each other, ‘There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!’” (John 12:19 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Popularity” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 13: The Altar of Popularity. Palm Sunday feels like a victory. The road is lined with people. Cloaks are thrown down. Branches are waved. Voices rise together in celebration. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”

It looks like faith. It sounds like devotion. It feels like certainty.

But popularity is not the same as allegiance.

The crowd is not lying. They are responding. They see something in Jesus that stirs hope, and they respond with what they have—praise, excitement, expectation. There is sincerity here. There is even joy.

But there is also assumption.

They are welcoming the kind of king they expect. A king who will restore, elevate, and vindicate. A king who fits their vision of how God should act. The celebration is real, but it is built on a particular understanding of who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to do.

And that understanding will not hold. Jesus is the embodiment of “I AM WHO I AM”—“I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE”—not who we wish Jesus to be, not who the crowd demands Jesus to be.

Because the road does not end in Jerusalem’s throne rooms. It leads somewhere else entirely. It leads to confrontation, to disruption, to suffering. It leads to a cross.

Palm Sunday celebrates arrival.

But it does not yet reckon with direction.

This is where the altar reveals itself.

The altar of popularity is built when faith is measured by approval. When what is affirmed by the crowd is assumed to be what is faithful. When the volume of praise is mistaken for the depth of commitment. It doesn’t take long to see how easily this happens. Even in something as simple as a show like The Traitors, herd mentality takes over quickly—people align with the crowd, suspicions spread, and “faithful” players turn on one another just to stay in step with the group. It is unsettling how quickly belonging outweighs truth.

It is easy to follow Christ when the path is lined with voices that agree. It is easy to join in when the movement feels like momentum, when the story feels like it is going somewhere triumphant and visible.

But the same road that receives praise will soon demand something else.

Not louder voices.

Not greater numbers.

But deeper trust.

The Gospels do not present a crowd that slowly drifts away in confusion. They show something more unsettling. The energy shifts. The expectations collapse. The same public enthusiasm that welcomed Jesus does not sustain when the path becomes costly.

And this is not just about them.

We are not outside that crowd. We are formed by the same instincts. We know how to celebrate what feels right. We know how to align ourselves with what gains affirmation. We know how to participate when following Christ looks like belonging, like clarity, like movement.

But when Christ leads somewhere uncomfortable—when obedience disrupts what we would prefer to keep intact—the question changes.

Not, “Do we agree?”

But, “Will we continue?”

Popularity creates the illusion that we are further along than we are. It allows us to believe that agreement is the same as commitment, that enthusiasm is the same as trust. It gathers us into something that feels like unity, even when that unity has not been tested.

But faith is not formed on the road where everyone agrees. It is formed on the road where following becomes costly.

Palm branches are easy to carry. They require nothing but participation in themoment.

Golgotha requires something else.

It requires staying when the crowd thins. It requires trust when the outcome no longer looks like victory. It requires a willingness to follow Christ not just where it is celebrated, but where it is rejected.

And that is where the altar breaks.

Because the altar of popularity cannot survive that road. It depends on affirmation. It depends on agreement. It depends on a version of Christ that keeps the crowd intact.

But Christ does not move according to the crowd. Christ moves toward the cross.

So the question is not whether we have praised. The question is not whether we have participated.

The question is whether we will follow.

Do we follow Christ to Golgotha…or do we follow the crowd?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Popularity may gather a crowd, but only trust follows Christ to the cross.

PRAYER
God, guard me from confusing approval with faithfulness. Give me the courage to follow Christ not only where it is easy, but where it is costly. Form in me a trust that remains when the crowd fades and the road becomes uncertain. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 12: The Altar of Delay

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Read Mark 14:32-42

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A large stone altar sits centered in a modern open courtyard, split by a deep crack running through its middle. The surrounding architecture is clean and structured, with a distant city skyline blurred in gray light. Overlaid text reads “ALTAR AUDIT: A New Lenten Devotion Series” and “The Altar of Delay,” with “Life-Giving Water Devotions” at the bottom. The atmosphere feels cold, still, and fractured, suggesting the breaking of something once trusted.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Delay” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 12: The Altar of Delay. There is a moment when faith stops being theoretical. There is a moment when belief becomes costly, when following Christ is no longer about agreement but obedience. Gethsemane is that moment.

Jesus does not ask for something dramatic or public. There is no crowd, no miracle, no spectacle. The request is simple: stay here, keep watch, and pray. It is quiet, immediate, and personal. And they cannot do it.

This is not betrayal—not yet. It is not denial—not yet. It is something quieter and far more familiar: delay. Delay is the refusal—or inability—to step into obedience when it becomes real.

“Could you not watch with me one hour?” The question is not about perfection. It is about readiness. Because delay rarely feels like rejection. It feels reasonable. Temporary. Understandable. “Just a moment.” “Not yet.” “Soon.”

But in Gethsemane, delay has weight. While they sleep, the moment passes. While they hesitate, the path unfolds without them. What could have been faithfulness becomes absence.

Do we have a faith of obedient trust, or a faith of complacency?

This tension is not new. It has always existed in the life of the Church, often in ways that are far less obvious than outright rejection.

Consider Constantine. Not villain, not hero—somewhere in between, and at times undeniably both. A ruler who reshaped the Church’s place in the world, aligned imperial power with Christianity, and altered history in ways we still live with. And yet, he was not baptized until near the end of his life.

Why? We do not fully know. Some point to political calculation. Others to a gradual movement toward belief. Still others suggest he delayed because early Christians took baptism seriously, recognizing the weight of life after it. What we can say is that his story is not simple.

Because marrying Christ to empire was never Christ’s aim. Christ did not seek power, nor build through domination, nor secure allegiance through force or favor. Many Christians recognized this and rejected that alignment outright, often at great personal cost.

So whatever Constantine believed by the end of his life, his story carries a tension we cannot ignore. He moved the faith forward publicly while his own personal step of obedience came later.

That tension should feel familiar.

We do not often deny Christ outright. We align ourselves with Christ. We show up. We speak the language of faith. We build systems, communities, and identities around belief.

But when obedience becomes costly, we hesitate. We delay. We tell ourselves we will get there.

Romans speaks directly into this: “Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” There is an urgency to faith that delay resists. Not because God is impatient, but because moments of obedience are not indefinite. They come, and they pass.

The altar of delay is subtle. It does not demand that we reject Christ. It only asks that we wait. That we postpone. That we choose a more convenient moment.

But faith is not formed in convenience. It is formed in response.

And the longer we delay, the easier it becomes to believe that “later” is still faithful.

In Gethsemane, the disciples slept through the moment that mattered. Not because they did not care, but because they were not ready when it counted.

The same danger remains.

Christ still calls. Not always loudly. Not always publicly. Often in quiet moments that require immediate trust. The question is not whether we believe. The question is whether we will respond when obedience becomes real.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Delay is not neutral; it quietly reshapes obedience into absence.

PRAYER
God, wake me from the places where I have grown comfortable in delay. Give me the courage to respond when obedience is required, not when it is convenient. Form in me a faith that trusts you enough to act when the moment comes. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Lent, Series

ALTAR AUDIT, Part 11: The Altar of Comfort

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Read Revelation 3:14-22

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“What sorrow awaits you who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem, and you who feel secure in Samaria! You are famous and popular in Israel, and people go to you for help.” (Amos 6:1 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

A large stone altar sits centered in an open, modern courtyard framed by concrete columns, visibly cracked down the middle. Snow or ash falls lightly through the air. In the distance, a blurred city skyline looms under a gray sky. The scene feels cold, exposed, and fractured, symbolizing the breaking of false foundations.
Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Altar of Comfort” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 11: The Altar of Comfort. Comfort is not the enemy. That needs to be said clearly. Rest is not the enemy either. Rest is sacred, commanded, and necessary. But comfort and rest are not the same thing, and confusing them may be one of the most dangerous spiritual missteps we make.

Comfort insulates. Rest exposes.

Comfort numbs. Rest awakens.

Comfort says, “I’m fine.” Rest says, “I need God.”

That distinction matters, because the church in Laodicea had comfort in abundance. It was wealthy, stable, and self-sufficient. It lacked nothing—at least, nothing it could see.

And yet Christ’s words cut straight through that illusion: “You say, ‘I have everything I need,’ and you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”

This is not a rebuke of weakness.This is a rebuke of self-secured religion.

The historical context makes this even sharper. Laodicea had no natural water source. Its water was piped in through aqueducts from surrounding cities—hot water from Hierapolis and cold water from Colossae. By the time it reached Laodicea, it was neither hot nor cold. It was lukewarm, mineral-heavy, and unpleasant.

So when Christ says, “You are neither hot nor cold…you are lukewarm,” this is not about emotional passion or spiritual hype. It is about usefulness.

Hot water heals.

Cold water refreshes.

Lukewarm water does neither.

It simply exists—offering no relief, no restoration, nothing of substance.

That is the indictment. Not a church that feels too little, but a church that does nothing. A faith that has become so accommodated, so self-protective, and so settled in its own adequacy that it no longer recognizes its need for Christ at all.

Stability has been mistaken for maturity.

This is where the altar reveals itself. The issue is not that Laodicea had comfort. The issue is that it trusted it. Comfort became the measure of health, the sign of blessing, and the goal to maintain. Nothing urgent. Nothing costly. Everything manageable.

But real rest is something else entirely.

Is comfort rest? Is rest—true rest—even comfortable? Who meditates in silence long enough to face what’s there? Some do…not most. People fear rest, honestly. They prefer leisure—and those are not the same thing. What we often call rest is controlled, comfortable, undemanding. It asks nothing of us. It changes nothing in us. It leaves us exactly as we are. And maybe that’s because we’ve learned to settle for what feels like peace without ever risking what is real. Sometimes what we call peace is simply the absence of disruption. Sometimes what we call wisdom is actually fear. And in the end, what we call rest is often just comfort dressed up in spiritual language.

But true rest…true rest places us before God without distraction, without performance, without control.

And that is rarely comfortable.

Churches can fall into the same pattern. Communities can appear calm while being spiritually numb. They can be orderly without being alive, stable without being faithful. Hard truths are avoided. Costly compassion is delayed. Difficult calls are softened. All of it done in the name of preserving peace.

But not all calm is holy. And in Revelation, Christ is not inside that system. Christ is outside it…knocking.

“I stand at the door and knock.”

Not forcing entry. Not breaking it down. But calling. Because the danger of the altar of comfort is not that it makes us feel bad.

It is that it makes us feel fine. Fine enough not to change. Fine enough not to listen. Fine enough not to need God. Until eventually, we no longer recognize the voice at the door.

But the knocking does not stop.

Christ still calls—not to disrupt for disruption’s sake, but to restore what comfort has numbed. To awaken what has settled. To enter what we have closed off in the name of peace.

The question is not whether Christ is near. The question is whether we will open the door.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Comfort becomes an altar when feeling “fine” replaces our need for Christ.

PRAYER
God, unsettle what has grown too comfortable in me. Strip away the illusion that ease is the same as faithfulness. Teach me the kind of rest that leads to surrender, not avoidance. Open my ears to your voice, even when it calls me beyond what is familiar or safe. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

A biweekly devotional