It appears that each person's worship of God - if one does worship Him - is uniquely customized. We all pretty much do our own thing, whatever that is. Perhaps God is good with it.
Yet in times past, much of daily and weekly worship involved something called an "altar."
ALTARS IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
The first mention of an altar in Scripture pops up in Genesis 8. Noah and his 7 surviving family members disembark from over a year on a boat, stepping into a world washed clean (almost) of sinful humanity. The passage captures attention -
Then, Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird an offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, old and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."
From then on, people who consistently walked with God would often worship around altars--at first made of stone, and then later, according the the Torah, made of wood with brass overlay, and a grill on top. Wood set on fire on top. Altars of Sacrifice became places where valuable animals were sacrificed to cover the penalty for one's violations of God's Law. Altars of Incense issued forth a sweet smell, symbolic of prayers arising into the presence of God.
An altar was the place where one's relationship with God was set aright through sacrificial worship. It was the place where you and God had serious interactions: fervent praises and life-shaping petitions.
ALTARS MISUSED
Like anything else God gives us, altars can be used for good, or they can be used for ill. In Hosea's day, "Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning" (8:11). Note it! God admits that no amount of re-educating instruction can correct the habitual misuse. "Were I to write for him My laws by the the thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing" (8:12).
Worship, even sacrificial worship, without sincerity of heart and obedience-to-the-Lord in every day living, doesn't cut it with God. "As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them" (8:13).
ALTARS TODAY?
Admittedly, we don't often "do" altars today...though I remember decades ago oft sitting in Sunday night church hearing pastor plead, "Come forward, and lay your all on the altar!" Or Friday night, summer-camp week-ending bonfires. "If you're truly willing to return home and live for Christ, toss your piece of wood in the fire. Burn brightly for Christ!!"
I walked that aisle more than once. I tossed my sticks in. In the presence of fire, to tell God I really loved Him. Longed for my life to count. Eager He might listen to the cries of my heart.
Sure, it would cost me something. Something had to be sacrificed in my life for something better to take its place. You brought an offering. Something to be consumed on an altar. "For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). "Let us offer to God acceptable worship!" (12:28).
Here's an idea - in all our "do my own thing" worship of the God who put His Son on the altar for me, perhaps establishing an altar could help. Presenting myself there with a sacrifice, and some prayerful incense.
"I urge you brothers. Present yourself to God a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship. Refuse to be conformed to this world. Rather be transformed, by the renewing of your mind, so you can prove what living out God's will looks like -- that which is good and acceptable and complete" (Romans 12:1-2).
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