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"And he went into the temple,
and began to cast out them that
sold therein,
and them that bought;
Saying unto them,
It is
written, MY HOUSE IS THE HOUSE OF PRAYER:
but ye have
made it a
DEN OF
THIEVES."
Luke 19:45-46
Examine Your Temple
The week
preceding Jesus' crucifixion is one of the
busiest
recorded in Scripture.
The reason
would seem to be that Jesus knew
His time was
drawing near.
For this
reason,
everything He did was for a purpose,
from the
riding on the donkey
to the
cursing of the fig tree;
from
breaking of the bread
to the cleansing of the temple.
The Temple
of Jerusalem was a major attraction
for
visitors.
It was also,
unfortunately, a major place of business.
The
merchants sanctioned by the temple
abused their
business privileges.
They also
used special temple currency
which was
exchanged at unfair rates.
However,
this was only a small part of what upset
Jesus.
The temple
was divided into several courtyards.
The
outermost courtyard was the one
designated
for the Gentiles.
They could
not go any further into the temple,
so that was
their place for prayer.
Here, there
was buying and selling,
hordes of
people talking,
and animals
all over the place, which made it hard
to focus on
fellowship with their heavenly Father.
Not only
that, but God was being robbed too!
Today, some
churches face similar problems.
They have
become social centers,
where people
gather to be seen and catch up
on the
latest news (gossip),
hindering
someone in the process,
distracting
focus on God.
Now, let's
take it the next step
toward
personal application.
Are our
bodies the "temple of the Holy Spirit?"
Every thing
we do with our body,
we do it to
God's temple.
Are we
robbing Him,
or is our
body truly a house of prayer?
May the good
Lord examine our temples
and cleanse
us of all that distracts us from Him.
"Lord Dictated
Them"
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