Altars: The Way of the Cross

By Don A. Taylor

What is Altars about? It is about sacrifice and suffering! It is about the refining fire of God and the way He tempers us to be used as a tool in the Creators hand! It is about waves of Gods grace and the true meaning of Glory! This book uses the Authors real life experiences along with a goodly amount of scripture and revelation from God, to show just how God uses the hardship of this life to draw us into a deeper relationship with Himself, to understand how to become malleable in the makers hand, and how through these hardships He molds us into His image of His Son!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512748703

Don A. Taylor

Don A. Taylor, he has no title such as Pastor or reverend, He has no theology degree. He is simply a follower of Jesus and together with his wife have learned some things that he would like to pass on to others to help them on their journey. Don resides in Columbus, Wi with his wife Katherine. Sometimes God uses a fisherman!

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Copyright © 2016 Don A. Taylor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4871-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4875-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4870-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016910860

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/14/2016

Contents

Introduction:

Chapter 1 Glory Clouds

Chapter 2 Doors of Difficulties

Chapter 3 Valley of Loss, The Refining Fire

Chapter 4 Altars

Chapter 5 Tempering

Chapter 6 Gods Waves of Grace

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to God who sees us through all things!

and

Special thanks to my wife Katherine

Who prayed through this book with me and

was willing to let our lives,

with all of its joys and woes be printed for all to see.

All the pictures and filigree work came from her,

she drew them from the different decorations

from all the churches we visited

Along our journey!

Thanks to family and friends that helped us through this time in our lives, with prayer and love.

Also thanks to C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Keith Green, John Michael Talbot, and Henry Drummond for being a huge influence to me. A lot of the thoughts I profess in this book come in part from them. Their teachings, blending along with insight from God and life experience helped produce this message!

BOOK

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ALTARS

Introduction:

A little about us:

My wife and I grew up in the Lutheran church, but we also grew up during the Jesus movement of the 60’s/70’s. We’ve known each other since we were two years of age. Our Mom’s both went to the same bible study; these were more on the charismatic side. We went to Jesus rallies, and to Charismatic home churches, and instead of Halloween we had Jesus loves you parties. Throughout our lives we both attended Lutheran church and our education was through the Lutheran schools, but we also tasted of many other denominations. After high school we drifted apart, and had some rough parts in our lives till God us brought back together at the age of twenty-nine. During those times, and since we have seen the body of Christ in all of the different expressions it can take, and we have hopefully taken the best from all of those experiences. We have been to Catholic, Lutheran, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Evangelical Free, etc. We’ve pretty much run the gambit within the traditional and non-traditional churches.

About nine years ago through a series of events we were led to a nondenominational church. We have very open worship. We sing, some dance, though I don’t. Some wave banners, though I don’t do that either; others raise their hands, which I love to do.

About a year ago God called us to leave the church we were attending to follow Him in a more direct way. We have attended churches in many different locations since then some as far as a state or so away from where we live, or wherever He leads. In all this we have seen God move in the lives of all His children. All those who follow Christ, no matter what denomination or non-denomination they are.

Why Am I writing this? I am writing this to tell part of our story: mine and my wife’s. I am not an author by trade, I have no theology degree, I have no title such as Pastor or reverend. Some times in life we have trials and loss. My wife and I have had these in abundance this last year or two. This book is for those who have experienced a great loss in some way and don’t know how to understand what God might be doing, and struggle to see His