Daily Prayer Guide - Passion Week - Monday - Jesus Cleanses His Temple

Read:

Isa 56:1-8

Mark 11:15-19 

 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, ¹⁶ and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. ¹⁷ And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

¹⁸ The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

¹⁹ When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

Consider:

When Jesus entered the temple area, it was not like you or I would enter a worship service at church. Jesus was entering a sacred place, the place humanity gathered to worship God. It was a holy place that required the men to have gone through a sacred bathing ritual in one of the many bathing pools just outside the temple walls, where they would have disrobed gone through the pool and put on clean clothes before entering the temple area.

Jesus would have entered into the large area called the court of the Gentiles where money would be exchanged for the temple tax and animals could be purchased for sacrifice, these are things everyone would have done before they would worship. This was a loud and busy place, in some ways not unlike the markets just outside the temple walls. The sacred had become the common, the holy reduced to crass commerce. 

The God / man had just ‘come home’ and it was not what he intended to find. It is interesting Jesus calls it “MY house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”. A presumptuous thing to say, unless it is YOUR house. Jesus expects to find his house, his temple, being used for the purposes He intends for it to be used. 

Paul writes in 1 Cor 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body”. 

Today, our bodies, our lives are intended to be used to honor God in everything we do. How often do we let the sacredness of our bodies become common? How often do we allow the holiness of our personal temples appear as crass as the world outside the temple walls. 

Especially in these days, when we are concerned that COVID19 could enter our bodies and ravage us, even kill us.  We have a heightened awareness of cleanliness through washing, wipes, gels and masks.  We don’t want anyone within feet of us and yet the cleaning Jesus has in mind for his temple has little to do with our flesh.  He is looking at our hearts and what is the condition of the holy place in our lives.

Life happens to us all and it can pile up over us to the point that we know our life with Jesus is somewhere down there, but I am just not where I used to be. For us to walk in the freshness of our relationship with Jesus, perhaps there are some things in your own life that need to be ‘cleaned out’ and discarded. Ask God to show you the areas of your life that need to be overturned and cleaned out so you can honor Him as His temple. 

Listen: Forgiveness; Matthew West   

Prayer: 

Father, Forgive me where my life has been reduced to the common and crass and where my mind has been consumed by the anxiety of COVID.  Your Spirit longs to live in my body as a holy temple for your glory. Yet, so often I give so little attention to your presence in my life. As Jesus came and cleansed His temple, please Father cleanse my life and remove the areas prevent you from receiving the glory you deserve. I long to live in a way that you are pleased to ‘come home’ to..

·      Thank God that he comes to restore the purpose of our lives where our bodies become his temple

·      Confess to him the areas of your life he reveals that need his cleansing.

·      Ask him to make your life the beautiful expression of his presence

·      Ask that God would cleanse our community, country and world of this virus that is destroying people’s lives

·      Ask that the first responders and people on the front lines would have the protective equipment to keep their lives clear and secure of COVID19.

Father, Thank you for making my body temples to be your house.  May my life be a house of prayer for all nations where people are discovering and experiencing your glorious presence.  May they see you in me today, for the sake of Jesus and his kingdom.  Amen. 

Meditate: 

1 Cor 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body