House of Prayer

"On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area 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, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 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.'"

Mark 11:15-17 

Jesus drove the moneychangers from the temple. In attempting to fulfill the laws of the Old Testament, animal sacrifices were needed. People would come to the temple to sacrifice their animals in keeping with the regulations God instituted through the Mosaic law. So, to make things easier for those who were coming, vendors set up their booths in the temple grounds to sell birds and animals for people to sacrifice. The intent of the sacrifices had been completely lost. God's intent was never for people to purchase flawed animals or birds. The very laws they were trying to uphold were being violated for the sake of money. God was angry, Jesus was angry, and the moneychangers were evicted.

    Today, we do not have to sacrifice at the temple. Our sacrifice has been offered once for all by Jesus himself. But there is something we need to understand about this story. Although we don't go to the temple to sacrifice, our own bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have become living temples for God to dwell. It seems to me that we need to ask ourselves some pertinent questions: Are we violating the temple of God with disobedient and sinful things? Have we allowed the the ways of the world to invade our temples? If we are temples of the Holy Spirit, then we are responsible to consecrate ourselves for his purpose. We must cast out the moneychangers!

    Jesus said that his temple was to "...Be called a house of prayer." So the temples of the Holy Spirit should also be houses of prayer. These temples that are our lives, are to be used for the purposes of God. Any sin, unwholesomeness, and idolatry cannot dwell there. We are inundated with the pollution of the world all the time. We see, hear, and experience things that are not fit for the temple of God. We cannot avoid the influence, but what we do with it is what counts. If we reject the world's ways, we keep the temple pure. But if we hold onto these lies, our temple becomes polluted as surely as the temple in Jerusalem in Jesus' day. Instead, we should be linked to God. This is really what being a house of prayer is all about. We may not be consciously praying all the time, but if the temple is clean, we are in fellowship with God at all times. 

    I would like to be known as a person of prayer. I would like my legacy to be one that promotes life in the Holy Spirit. So I am challenged to clean out the moneychangers. Jesus was angry about this, I should be angry too. It is through this that I will become closer to God. He lives in this temple that is me. Dare I call my temple anything else but 'a house of prayer?' The goal is to be like Christ. I want my life to welcome him. I want my temple to be suitable for him to dwell within. Is it your goal? It is to us that Jesus says, "My house will be called a house of prayer." Let's live accordingly.