They started with the altar. The faith in practice of the people was to be rooted and grounded in sacrifice. Go back to this: we are commanded to love God. Why should you love God?...Because he has first loved us and he has demonstrated that love in giving himself to die for us. Why would any person in his right mind…not love such a God, not delight in such a God, not feel safe to be one's true self, and confide in and rely upon the Lord and run to him even when we are at our worst, and not fear that he is going to bash us at the side of the head and tell us what losers we are? Why would we not love him? He demonstrates his love through the sacrifice of himself, and the sacrificial system in the Old Testament points to that.1
William Harrell
1 When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.